We are thrilled to announce that we have received funding for a project that will honour the history of the pre-war Japanese Canadian community on Salt Spring Island.
The Japanese Canadian Legacies Society (JCLS) is supporting the Japanese Garden Society of Salt Spring Island (JGS) with a grant for the project titled “Japanese Canadian Memorial Story Project”. The JCLS is able to support 29 projects in BC which will be completed by March 2027.
The project aims to celebrate the resilience of the pre-war Japanese Canadian community on Salt Spring Island and the Southern Gulf Islands and examine the enduring past to prevent history from repeating itself. An information kiosk with four interpretive panels will be installed in the well-loved Heiwa Garden. Additionally, another panel will be installed on the Lower Ganges Road footpath to bring to life the invisible legacy of Japanese-Canadian families who once lived in the area.
The creation of the Japanese Canadian Memorial Story Project on Salt Spring Island has received local support from CRD SSIPARC and Salt Spring Island Local Community Commission (LCC).
Background on the funding provided by JCLS:
Before, during and after World War II, 22,000 Japanese Canadians living in British Columbia were forcibly uprooted and permanently stripped of their homes, businesses, and belongings and relocated to internment camps outside the coastal BC area and displaced across the country, with some exiled to Japan. The majority of the uprooted Japanese Canadians were born in BC.
Overnight, lives were shattered and entire communities eradicated. Japanese Canadians trusted they would one day return to their homes. Instead, their properties and possessions were sold without their consent.
After the war ended in 1945, the majority of Japanese Canadians were prevented from returning to the coast. They were ordered to either move east of the Rockies or to war-torn Japan. When the community was allowed to return to the coast in 1949, it had nothing to return to.
The history of what happened to Japanese Canadian communities in BC is still relatively unknown.
In recognition of this history, the Japanese Canadian Legacies Society has created a BC Heritage Sites program. The purpose of the program is to assist local communities in promoting the legacies of Japanese Canadians in British Columbia through interpretive projects at sites of historical significance. These sites recognize a community who made important contributions to the building of this province, yet endured forced uprooting, incarceration, permanent dispossession, and displacement at the hands of the BC Government, resulting in the largest forced mass relocation in Canadian history.
This fund is intended to help make some of these now mostly invisible sites visible to new generations of British Columbians so that they may learn to appreciate the lasting legacies of Japanese Canadians in BC. Initiatives may include projects that promote memorialization, conservation and/or education of Japanese Canadian history tailored to a region within the province of British Columbia. These projects will have an enduring value.
Commemorating and celebrating our historic places—most of which remain under-recognized and underserved—is at the heart of the Japanese Canadian community’s work to rebuild connections to its heritage in British Columbia, and share this history and its lessons with all British Columbians.
We gratefully acknowledge support from the Japanese Canadian Legacies Society.