WHEN JAPAN STRUCK PEARL HARBOR in December 1941, 3,400 men, women, and children of Japanese descent lived on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. Nikkei settlements ranged from colonies that sprouted up around sawmills to lonely pockets of fishing families.
The earliest Japanese stepping ashore on Vancouver Island were visitors, not immigrants. In June 1880, a naval training vessel sailed into Esquimalt Harbour, the first Japanese ship to dock in Canada. Its three weeks in port were thoroughly covered by the Victoria Colonist. Settlers from Japan followed shortly.
As the provincial capital and a military base, Victoria was Canada’s Pacific port of entry, and the logical choice for many early arrivals to begin their new life in a strange land. A substantial upper class, living in opulent residences and accustomed to an aristocratic lifestyle, required servants. The incoming young Japanese, eager to learn English and western customs, willingly became cooks, houseboys, and handymen.
The Victoria Japanese Methodist Church (later the Japanese United Church) opened in 1894 with a resident minister, a clear indication that its congregation was firmly established. It remained until 1942, serving as a place for meeting and worship, and as a Japanese language school. The record of the city’s Ross Bay Cemetery reveals that twenty-three Japanese were buried there before the turn of the century, the first death occurring in 1886. The list includes two females, one likely an infant.
As in most Pacific Coast towns and cities, both Canadian and American, the inflow from Japan gave birth to a Japanese sector in Victoria. This eased language and cultural difficulties for their people. Within these enclaves, merchants and businessmen emerged who, generally better educated and more articulate and aggressive than the labouring types, became the leaders and spokesmen. But the real entrepreneurs ventured beyond their ethnic domain to engage in more rewarding enterprises in their quest for wealth and prestige.
One notable case was a future taikun or tycoon who began his career in Canada in 1888 at Victoria’s “Japanese Bazaar” owned by Charles Gabriel. This was a shop selling silk, bamboo, lacquerware, Oriental porcelain, and curios from the Far East. Earning the owner’s trust and confidence, Shinkichi Tamura was quickly promoted from clerk to buyer where he arranged purchases from Japan and learned about international trade and commerce. He left for Vancouver to pursue a very successful endeavour in the import-export field, establishing several firms, including a trust and savings company called “Tamura Bank” in nikkei circles. He was the key negotiator in the first major Canadian wheat sale to Japan. Tamura’s achievements were instrumental in his election to the Upper House of Japan’s parliament.
Around 1892, Charles Gabriel undertook an unrelated venture. He recruited a team of coal miners from Kyushu in southern Japan to dig for coal on one of the Gulf Islands. It proved to be a disaster. Two white men were killed in an explosion that collapsed the digging, and the operation was abandoned.
When the Wellington Collieries of Nanaimo expanded its Cumberland pits around 1890, they imported more Kyushu miners with better results, at least for the managers. For the Japanese, it was far from ideal. They joined the Occidentals and the Chinese in extracting coal under intolerable and treacherous conditions. When union miners struck in Nanaimo, the Japanese were dispatched as strikebreakers. They suffered fatalities in two major underground explosions, as well as in lesser accidents: in 1901, nine were among sixty-four killed, and five more perished in 1922. In spite of these tragedies, exploitation by management and the hostility of the union, its coal pits made the Cumberland nikkei community the largest on Vancouver Island. With the arrival of wives and picture brides, and the births that followed, the population reached well over 500.
Unlike mining, no clear sign pinpointed where or when Japanese began farming on Vancouver Island. Most young Japanese arriving in Canada 100 years ago were sons of farming families all too aware of long dreary hours and meagre rewards in tilling the soil. The only experience that was worse, they claimed, was being conscripted into the Imperial army to suffer harsh military training. In order to escape the draft as well as the drudgery of farm life, they left Japan before reaching age twenty.
During the First World War when demand and prices of produce were steady, owning a modest spread became more attractive and profitable. Japanese bought or leased acreage on the Gulf Islands, at Cordova Bay on the Saanich Peninsula, in Crofton north of Duncan, and near Courtenay in the Comox Valley. They kept poultry and grew a range of fruit, vegetables, and grains, and some special Oriental produce for their people.
With abundant sun, Saltspring Island strawberries were large and luscious. Being short and agile, Japanese growers were more adept at cultivating and picking the earth-hugging fruit than their taller, heavier Occidental counterparts. On nearby Mayne Island, nikkei were among the first to produce the best hot-house tomatoes. The sweet corn from Cordova Bay tasted even sweeter if boiled in the local brine. Japan had little grazing land and dairy products were not a staple in the Japanese diet. But novice dairymen herded bovine in the lush pastures of Comox Valley. However, they were shut out from the Courtenay creamery because white competitors protested.
When fishermen from the seaside villages of Wakayama, south of Osaka, heard of the great salmon run, they rushed to the Fraser River during the final decade of the last century. Indeed, so many Wakayama folks disembarked that they dominated the nikkei fishery in Canada. From Steveston on the Fraser they spread to other fishing areas: north to Rivers Inlet, to the Skeena and Nass Rivers, and across the Strait of Georgia to Vancouver Island.
Due west of Steveston, the fishing settlement at Nanaimo became the largest on the east coast of the island. Smaller groups, mainly cod fishermen, chose protected coves in the Gulf Islands, Victoria, Sidney, and Chemainus, or farther north on Quadra Island. In Alert Bay on Cormorant Island, one family engaged in building fish boats. A feature of the tides around Nanaimo were the massive herring runs. In 1900, the first herring saltery was built there to preserve and market the huge catches. Other plants located later on Newcastle and Galiano Islands, where ocean freighters docked alongside to load herring and chum salmon destined for the Far East.
Overcrowding on the Fraser, the government slashing the number of nikkei fishing licences, and the introduction of gaspowered motor boats for salmon trolling on the open sea contributed to the trek to the outer coast of Vancouver Island in the 19205. Fishermen and their families settled in the remote villages of Tofino and Ucluelet, which were then accessible only by sea. Though only forty-two kilometres apart, most inhabitants of either hamlet never visited the other. A few anchored at Bamfield across Barkley Sound from Ucluelet. Also at Barkley Sound, the B.C. Packer cannery employed nikkei men and women, and a Japanese-owned saltery was built at Kildonan.
After Steveston, the main group bought shoreline proper-ties of multiple lots in Ucluelet. They helped one another build less-than-modest shelters of shiplap, shingles, and rough flooring, without electricity or indoor plumbing. A co-operative was formed to oversee fishery-related issues and problems, and to buy a packer to collect and transport the catch to the cannery or saltery. Like any proud nikkei enclave, the co-operative erected a multi-purpose hall to serve as a Japanese school and church, and for solemn functions such as funerals or joyous occasions like wedding receptions. Most eagerly awaited were Japanese movies sent from Vancouver—samurai sagas for the men and tear-jerkers for the ladies. To operate the projector, the packing boat engine generated the power.
The isolated villages had many concerns. The womenfolk worried when men set out in perilous seas without radio communication. In case of a serious injury or illness, the nearest hospital was in Port Alberni, an eight-hour trip in calm weather from Tofino. Young people hoping to graduate from high school either took correspondence courses or moved to the city to attend classes. The villages offered no employment for young women. They were often sent to a sewing school in Vancouver to learn a skill considered a requisite to marriage. The family could not move to benefit the children since the father’s licence limited him to trolling on the west coast, and he was barred from securing any new licence. White and Native Indian permits, obtained by application and a fee, were unrestricted.
Japanese immigrants came ashore in British Columbia as miners, farmers, or fishermen, but never as forestry workers. Except for bamboo, which is a type of grass and not a tree, Japan did not possess vast stands which could be cut down for wood and wood products. Still, the logging and lumbering industries became the largest employers of the nikkei work force on Vancouver Island.
With what seemed like an endless source of timber matched by an insatiable demand, logging camps and sawmills abounded everywhere. The Japanese, who proved willing and reliable, were hired almost as quickly as they landed. But the real impetus was the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914. Not only did it create an urgent military need for forestry products but it also led to a shortage of workers as young men enlisted in the armed forces.
When war erupted, Japan, committed to a military alliance with Britain, which included Canada, declared war against Germany. Its navy patrolled the Pacific waters off Canada’s shore and its warships steamed in and out of the naval docks of Esquimalt. The nikkei of Canada greeted Japan’s action with total approval, ever hopeful that it would lead to their acceptance as full Canadian citizens. In a demonstration of allegiance, over 200 volunteered to fight for Canada. Of those, fifty-four were killed and ninety-seven were wounded.
On Vancouver Island, the logging camps and sawmills were pleading for men to restore and augment their army-drained labour force. Nikkei heeded the call and were readily accepted. Of special note were two bustling mill towns: Port Alberni and Chemainus. Port Alberni, built at the head of the Alberni Inlet—where the first Japanese were hired for the grim task of chopping up huge mammals at a whaling station—was set among one of the best stands of centuries-old Douglas fir. Several sawmills opened in the region, requiring a large influx of loggers and mill workers. In 1911, Port Alberni was linked by rail to Nanaimo, where flatcars loaded with lumber were rolled on to barges. Destined for the mainland, they could then travel east without unloading their cargo.
Chemainus, where growth was not as dramatic, had only a single mill, but it was a modern, highly productive operation with a steady supply of logs from the booms. Those who came were attracted by the year-round employment, a developing nikkei community, and the amenities of a town, rather than a remote, cash-poor, and timber-short venture that many had already experienced. Most of all, they sought a proper environment to raise and educate their young families.
South of Chemainus, Duncan was the hub of woodland activity in the Cowichan Valley. Some ran retail businesses as grocers, tailors or shoe repairmen, or drove log-hauling trucks. Most Duncan men worked in the woods, returning home on weekends or when weather or danger of fire closed the forest. Sawmills were located at nearby Hillcrest and Paldi, which employed nikkei workers. Among them were logging contractors who supplied these mills with timber.
Nikkei-owned as well as Japan-financed forestry operations were active north of Nanaimo. The first and most extensive was Royston Lumber Company, which was purchased by a syndicate of three nikkei families in 1916. It owned timberland with considerable reserves and a sawmill complete with planer to produce finished lumber, which were linked together by ten miles of rail. Many of its hundred employees were recruited from nearby Cumberland where coal mining was winding down. The lumber was sold locally and in adjacent districts from Campbell River to Nanaimo.
Japan was the chief buyer from Deep Bay Logging Company established in 1923, sometimes called “Kagetsu Camp” in reference to its owner. Japanese freighters called in at Fanny Bay, south of Royston, to load logs bound for Japan. Japanese capital initiated a logging venture in Coombs. A more ambitious logging undertaking was launched at very remote Port McNeill, with a million-dollar investment from a Japanese corporation a few years prior to the Second World War.
Apart from the above firms, other sawmills of various capacities north of Nanaimo used nikkei work crews. These locations included Nanoose Bay, Bowser and Bloedel, and across from Alert Bay, the works at Englewood had a good-sized output. Not to be overlooked is Port Alice, once the locale of the only pulp mill on Vancouver Island. In order to be profitable, the mill ran twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, shutting down only three days each year. Employees toiled in twelve-hour shifts, switching from day to night and back in two-week intervals. If workers wished to retain their jobs, they were required to put in a two-year stretch before they could board the Union Steamship boat for a brief respite. It was a monotonous grind with little relief or diversion.
During the span in which forestry was making noteworthy impact on the island, significant change was also affecting nikkei life in Canada. As noted before, young men left impoverished homes in an austere land in the hope of quick gains and a triumphant return. These were shattered dreams. Instead of heading home to grim reality, most chose to remain, in search of a stable family existence in their adopted country.
After an anti-Asiatic disturbance in Vancouver in 1907, Japan agreed to limit its annual emigration to Canada. But no restrictions were placed against women entering as wives and prospective brides of men already here. As a result, from 1910, Japanese women proceeding to Canada each year constantly outnumbered incoming males. This peaked during the 1914-18 war years when the Dominion was booming and the awaiting men were prospering. However, this policy was changed in 1928 and their entry was slowed to a trickle.
The aspirations of these pioneering men and women, called the issei—meaning first generation—was to provide a secure home in a domestic environment for their Canadian offspring, the nisei or second generation, whose numbers were increasing rapidly. Coming from a homeland that stressed a strong family bond and respect for tradition, the issei hoped to instill these values in the nisei. This was the goal of the community language schools.
They varied in enrollment (as few as ten students to a hundred in two schools combined in Cumberland), quality of teaching (housewives to qualified educators from Japan) and frequency of classes (one night a week to Monday to Friday after regular school). Except for the few nisei who learned to read and write passably, the worth of these schools is debatable. Moreover, it deprived youngsters of after-school romps that others enjoyed and added fuel to fiery rhetoric of some politicians that Japanese schools were hives of subversive activity.
Academic achievement, whether in English or Japanese, or commercial or technical training, did not open doors to suitable employment. The nisei were barred from fields such as law and pharmacy, and trades such as morticians and locomotive engineers. Denied the right to vote federally and provincially in B.C., they lacked the political power to protest or combat these injustices. For the men, leaving school meant going off to a logging camp, sawmill, or to some menial job. More fortunate were those with a family-owned business. The plight of women was similar. A university graduate found that the only position open to her in Victoria was as a domestic. Though it was the provincial capital, she could not join the civil service. No nisei women on Vancouver Island were nurses, teachers, stenographers—not even a clerk in a candy store, unless it was owned by a nikkei.
All problems and issues became academic when the bombs fell. It was a shock beyond words. From Port Alice south to Victoria, the unexpected stunned the nikkei community.
That night, tomato growers on Mayne Island, shopkeepers in Duncan, mill workers in Port Alberni and a community leader in Chemainus—eleven men, all Japanese nation-als—were arrested and interned but never charged. Within twenty-four hours, language schools were shut, Japan-owned logging assets seized, and nikkei workers at Victoria’s Empress Hotel fired without notice. In a week, fishermen were ordered to steer their craft under escort to New Westminster.
Shortly, all Japanese nationals (those not naturalized or born in Canada) were ordered to report monthly to the RCMP, a dusk-to-dawn curfew was imposed, and cameras, radios, and motor vehicles were confiscated. Finally, the inevitable came: exile of everyone of Japanese descent from the Pacific coast. The Vancouver Island exodus began in mid-March, with Japanese national males first, followed by the families and others. By the end of April 1942, all 3,400 were cleared off the island. Their half-century presence was obliterated.
Seven years later, in April 1949, all restrictions against the exiles were lifted, including political, social, and economic in-justices. They could now move freely, vote, take any employment, and recall to Canada family members stranded in Japan.
Five years after full citizens’ rights were granted or restored, barely fifty of the original 3,400 were back in their former towns or villages. They include two families in logging in the Cowichan, some fishermen who returned to Nanaimo and Ucluelet, and a widow who moved to Victoria with her new husband. But not a soul reappeared in the former nikkei centres of Chemainus or Cumberland. Only the dated grave markers with Japanese names attest to the existence of these and other communities on Vancouver Island that vanished more than fifty years ago.