Under cover of night, a Japanese schooner ghosted along the coast of Vancouver Island, northwest of Victoria. The ship’s boats were lowered. Seventy-eight men clambered down and rowed to shore with packs containing tinned meat, army biscuits, tents and hammocks. The boats then returned silently to the schooner.
At first light, the men—many of them dressed in army uniforms from the Russo-Japanese War that had ended the year before—consulted maps, shouldered packs and formed into military-style columns. They strode from the beach into the forest and began their trek.
They had spent seven weeks at sea before arriving in Canada as smuggled immigrants. Their task now was to march overland, avoiding contact with Vancouver Island residents as much as possible. At Sidney, some 50 kilometres away by a direct route, many more by the roundabout route that they had been instructed to follow, a steamer would meet them to take them clandestinely to the Fraser Valley, where work awaited.
There was no time to waste. As silently as they could, they moved through the forest, setting up bivouacs at night, then forging ahead as soon as the light allowed. Not everyone was robust enough for the march, but the fittest could not wait for the weary. One by one or in groups, those who could not keep up with the rest of the column were left behind. The others continued on, always checking their detailed maps.
What did they make of this new land, so different from Japan and so sparsely settled? We do not know. We do know that after a march of several days, just 26 of the original 78 emerged from the trees and meadows of the Saanich Peninsula to seek the ship that would take them to safety. No ship awaited them. Like many other smugglers’ voyages, this one did not go according to plan.