Seeing the Bahamas through a historic lens | Canada Voices

Are you here to buy an island?

I laugh at the question. Then I realize our cab driver seems half-serious. He’s navigating us through late-afternoon traffic in Nassau, whizzing past fish fry shacks, pastel pink houses and teens on motorcycles doing wheelies as he delivers us to our hotel. He explains there’s more than 700 islands that form the Bahamas, most of them uninhabited. And many are for sale.

Given there was only about US$100 in my wallet, it was probably not enough to make an offer.

“Not on this trip,” I respond.

I take this opportunity to tell our cabbie that a little over a century ago, Canada had actually thought about buying the Bahamas entirely. True story: In 1911, at the request of the Bahamas House of Assembly, the two countries’ governments began serious negotiations for Bahamian inclusion into the Canadian confederation.

The Bahamas wanted to join our country largely because it was getting punished by U.S. tariffs on its produce. Joining Canada was seen as a way to gain access to a larger, more stable market and reduce dependence on the United States.

At the time, the Bahamas were still a shimmering, sun-drenched secret for most foreigners – a necklace of coral islands that Canada, in a fit of imperial vanity, briefly dreamed of wearing. Montreal insurance magnate T.B. Macaulay led a delegation of businessmen on a tour of the Bahamas, spreading his idea that the archipelago could become the “Florida of Canada” – a promise of permanent summer where the Atlantic was not a grey, freezing wasteland, but a liquid jewel of sapphire and jade.

The plan ultimately fell apart, partly because racist policy makers in Ottawa worried about incorporating tens of thousands of Black Bahamians into the Dominion, according to reports in the New York Times and elsewhere. The islands gained their independence from Britain in 1973.

For this trip, my girlfriend and I wanted to imagine the Bahamas as it was in 1911. We stationed ourselves at the British Colonial, the oldest hotel in Nassau. It was a landmark in the capital city in the gilded age of resort travel – a place where politicians, industrialists and merchants used to gather for drinks and respite. It was also where Macaulay stayed when he was promoting his North-South union.

The old hotel had declined significantly in recent years and was nearly done in by the pandemic. But thanks to a US$50-million renovation that wrapped up in December, 2025, it’s been restored to its former glory. Today, it’s a refreshing change of pace from Atlantis Paradise Island Bahamas and the Baha Mar, two neighbouring mega-resorts that feel like Las Vegas dropped into the Caribbean.

With its high ceilings, mahogany-walled bar and polished-marble lobby, the British Colonial carries itself the way an aging statesman might: aware that the world around it has changed, yet unwilling to surrender the quiet dignity of its past. In a Bahamas increasingly defined by spectacle, with floating cities of cruise ships crowding the harbour and shopping malls disguised as resorts, the hotel feels almost subversive in its restraint.

For many Bahamians, the British Colonial has been around so long it’s like an extension of their family, the site of countless proms, weddings and banquets. The hotel stands on the edge of Nassau’s old downtown, where if you wait for the last cruise ship to leave by 5 p.m., you can imagine the Bahamas as it once was. Quiet streets flanked by low‑slung pastel buildings, trimmed in white and edged with wooden shutters, from a time when British administrators prized order, symmetry and shade over spectacle. The Government House, perched on its pink limestone bluff, still surveys the harbour with a ceremonial confidence that predates mass tourism.

A short walk from our hotel, we found the Cricket Club, a pub and restaurant that has been serving British and Bahamian favourites for decades, and hosts live cricket games on weekends. We came on a Sunday and had a lazy lunch of curried chicken and ice-cold bottles of Sands lager, surrounded by families stopping in on their way home from church.

Standing guard on a hill above the Cricket Club are the stone walls of Fort Charlotte, a constant reminder of the looming threat of Yankee invasion. The Americans raided here once before, during the Revolutionary War in 1776, when they stole all the muskets and gunpowder from the governor-general’s mansion on the hill and promptly left. Today, the American invasion comes from the daily flotilla of cruise ships that bring thousands of day-tripping tourists.

But all those cruise passengers miss out on the charms of Nassau in the evening, particularly when a row of wooden restaurants that locals call the Fish Fry come alive, where the smell of fried seafood, cigars and rum punch mix with thumping dance hall music. This is when Nassau belongs to Bahamians, and yet, locals remain polite and welcoming to visitors – even if they complain when the weather dips down to 22 degrees at night.

This makes me want to go home and hide under a blanket, one man tells us as we leave the Poop Deck, a waterfront seafood restaurant by the Nassau marina.

The Bahamians have found more ways to eat conch (pronounced “conk”) than there are days in the week. They chop this versatile shellfish into salad, served with lime and orange juice, diced mango, tomato and onion. They mix it into chewy fritters, with bits of bacon and Old Bay seasoning. They “crack” it – tenderized and battered – and serve it in tasty strips. They also deep-fry it, curry it, stew it and put it in chowder.

They’re innovators with spirits, too, taking gin and mixing it with coconut water, sweetened condensed milk and nutmeg to make a creamy cocktail called Sky Juice, sold at roadside stands. They combine coconut and dark rum and add in orange juice, pineapple and apricot brandy to create a mind-altering substance dubbed a Goombay Smash. And for $30, a man on the beach will serve you bottomless Bahama Mamas in a carved-out pineapple. This is the kind of innovative thinking we need right now in Canada.

If you go

Air Canada, West Jet and Porter Airlines offer direct flights to Nassau from Toronto.

Cash is still preferred by many businesses. Bahamians use U.S. and Bahamas currency interchangeably (it’s of equal value). Many Canadian banks have branches in Nassau, so no need to worry about withdrawal fees.

The writer travelled as a guest of Intrepid Travel, which did not review or approve this article. Stories are based on merit; The Globe does not guarantee coverage.