Touched By Dispossession
As our project evolves, we have gathered stories of individual and communities that were touched by dispossession. We are grateful to the contributors and we are honoured to to share these with you.
Dispossession Couldn’t Stop a 60-year Commercial Salmon Fishing Tradition for the Kadowaki Family
Submitted by Ron Kadowaki My father, Tadashi Kadowaki, along with my grandfather, Katsuki Kadowaki, were commercial salmon gillnet fishermen at North Pacific Cannery on the Skeena River before the Second World War. With the internment, their boats were confiscated and...
Paldi-The town that time plum forgot. A story of dispossession and repossession
The Town That Time Plum Forgot By Michael Abe My mother, Ruth Abe (nee Toyota) was a young girl when her family was uprooted and sent to Popoff and New Denver during WWII. She was the second youngest of 14 children born to Shoshichi and Kiriye (nee Obuchi) Toyota...
Lillie Reiko Hamaguchi’s story as told to her granddaughter Lillian Michiko Blakey
"Tied up" - Mixed media collage -Lillian Michiko Blakey In 1996, I asked my mother Lillie Reiko Hamaguchi to write her story for her grandchildren. Since then I have been dedicating my artwork to the telling of my family story of relocation. See www.blakeyart.ca...
1500 Chickens- By Sally Ito
This is one of the entries of short anecdotes about writer Sally Ito's late Nisei great aunt. This one deals with dispossession, but not your usual possessions. You can read all forty stories at http://cowbird.com/grdvph/stories/chronological/ 1500 Chickens By Sally...
More Than Possessions – Ohina san (Girls’ Day Dolls)
More than Possessions Masako Fukawa, Burnaby, BC My family lived in Steveston surrounded by relatives connected by blood and the fishing industry. Both grandfathers started in fishing. My paternal grandfather left Japan in 1893 and on arrival in Canada entered the...
My Grandfather Takateru Takarabe’s Story of Dispossession
By Donna Buck A few years ago I had sent away for the government’s archived records with regards to my Grandfather, Taketeru Takarabe and the sad story of trust, betrayal and dispossession as all Japanese Canadians of his time endured. I had often thought it would be...
Japanese Canadian fishing boat escapes dispossession
Late In 1941, Toshiaki (Jack) Goto took possession of his new gill netter - the last one built by the Suzuki Brothers Boat Works on Annacis Island. When he and his family were ordered relocated in 1942 his Finnish neighbor, Frans Jakko (Jack) Taipalus, bought the new...
Deep Bay Logging-the Japanese Camp in Fanny Bay
Submitted by Everette Surgenor, Castlegar, BC I believe that Mr. Kagetsu started his logging operation in Fanny Bay in 1923 and his timber license gave him access to timber from the highway up into the mountains between Coal Creek and north to Cougar Smith Creek. He...
Port Alice memories – Dee S.
Submitted by Kenna Barradell Victoria BC I was happy to hear about this project this morning on CBC. When I was very young, my grandmother shared stories about her early married life in Port Alice and the joyful times spent with the Japanese community there. She was...
‘Gently to Nagasaki’ -Joy Kogawa
Excerpt from Chapter 1 in Joy Kogawa's new work-in-progress, 'Gently to Nagasaki' Like twenty-two thousand other ‘enemy aliens’ during World War II, our family lost our home back in the 1940’s. I was in grade one. Suddenly we Canadians of Japanese ancestry had become...
Mizuno Family Camera
ca.1921 JCNM 2011.17.1 Mizuno Collection “Folding Pocket Camera.” Nikkei Images 16, no. 1 (Spring 2011): 24. This small and fairly ordinary No 3-A Autographic Kodak Folding Pocket Camera encompasses many stories. The Mizuno family ran a rooming house at 578 Alexander...
Midge Ayukawa
Ayukawa, Midge. "Lemon Creek Memories." Nikkei Images 17, no. 1 (Spring 2012): 11-16. Since December 8th when the Japanese language teacher had announced that the school was being closed and had admonished us that we were Canadians and to remember that our allegiance...
Cole R Harris
My grandfather, a young Englishman from a prosperous industrial family in Calne, Wiltshire, took up land on a bench above Slocan Lake between New Denver and Silverton in 1896, and planted a sizeable orchard. It was not successful; when the mines closed there was no...
Share your story…
If you have a story of an individual, family, or community that was touched by dispossession, we would love to be able to share it with visitors to our site.
