Greenwood Nikkei from Steveston

He [Gihei Kuno] must have gasped in sheer disbelief as he watched, in 1887, the teeming red salmon battling the Fraser River to return to their spawning streams. In reflection he was reminded of the fisher folk of his native Mio village in Wakayama, south of Osaka. There they harvested their meagre catch to eke out a bare existence […]. On the Fraser, fish were so plentiful that they virtually leaped into the boat.
(Takata, 1983)

Gihei Kuno’s enthusiasm after seeing the abundance of fish along the Fraser River in 1887 must have been contagious. He was followed two years later by fifty men from his village in Mio and eventually two hundred and fifty others joined them in Steveston. Of the coastal villages in Wakayama, the largest percentage of immigrants were from Mio that had a population of approximately four hundred families. An estimated two hundred and thirty families were fisher folk and one hundred and twenty were farmers. Many fisher folk left Mio due to the loss of fishing grounds, the collapse of the sardine fishery in the nineteenth century, and the lack of land ownership. Immigrants to Steveston also came from Shimosato, Temma, and Takeshiba, but they numbered only approximately fifteen since most of the fisher folk in these villages also owned rice fields that helped to sustain them.

Steveston also became home to immigrants from villages outside of Mio, including Takui and Ao, as well as from smaller communities in Wakayama.

Since the majority of early immigrants to Canada were not the eldest sons who would eventually inherit the family property, their future was not promising. For this reason, poverty, the lack of opportunities, and overpopulation in Japan, they sought their fortune in this country with the intention of eventually returning to their homeland.

The number of permanent Japanese residents in Steveston grew significantly from an estimated fifty-five in 1891 to 2,150 by 1940. After approximately fifty years, Steveston became home to Issei and their families who represented 75% of the village’s population. The majority of the men were fisher folk; however, with the decreasing number of fishing licences cancelled and issued to the Japanese after World War I and the limited number of jobs available to them, others chose to become self-employed. By 1941 in Steveston, approximately 74% of the Nikkei were involved in their own businesses including general and grocery stores, boat works, fish buying, barber shops, tailors, and machine shops. There were also a number of Japanese families engaged in farming. Some Japanese women were employed on a casual basis washing fish, filling salmon cans, processing salmon roe, and working on fruit and vegetable farms.

Japanese Benevolent Society Hall

Group outside the hall, c1900
Photo credit City of Richmond Archives

Lord Byng School, Steveston

Class photo, c1940
Photo credit Yuasa family collection

Steveston Tennis Club

Group with agricultural tools, c1922
Photo credit Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre 2010.80.2.10

Education was a key priority of the Japanese community. Due to limited opportunities for their children to attend public schools, the Nikkei established the Steveston Japanese Language School in 1909. With the growth in their population and the desire to integrate into the broader society, they lobbied for their children to attend public school and raised funds to help complete Lord Byng School in 1925. After attending public school during the day, the Japanese children had two hours of Japanese language instruction. When the community outgrew that school, they raised $20,000 to match the B.C. government’s contribution to build a new Lord Byng School with fourteen rooms where the students attended public and Japanese language classes.

By 1942, the Japanese in Steveston had established a vibrant and close-knit community with a medical facility, the Japanese Fishermen’s Hospital; a Buddhist temple, a Methodist and a Catholic church, day nurseries, kindergartens, the Japanese Fishermens Benevolent Society, and at least eleven organizations.

Following the removal of Nikkei from the outlying areas of the protected zone such as Vancouver Island, the B.C. Security Commission focussed its efforts on forcibly relocating them from Steveston over approximately the next month. The first group to be removed were Japanese male nationals who were sent to road camps. Most of the rest of the Nikkei were sent to Greenwood, while a few were shipped to beet fields in Alberta and Manitoba. By early April 1942, this bustling and cohesive community had been destroyed.

Despite this, Steveston (now part of the City of Richmond) and Wakayama became Twin Sisters in 1973. Of the Japanese population in this city, 75% had emigrated from Wakayama Prefecture, and the long history between the two cities was not to be forgotten.

References

Adachi, K. (1976). The enemy that never was: A history of Japanese Canadians.

Canada. British Columbia Security Commission. (1942, March 4 – October 31). Removal of Japanese from protected areas.

City of Richmond. (2018, March 13). Wakayama.

Takata, T. (1983). Nikkei legacy: The story of Japanese Canadians from settlement to today.

Yesaki, M. (2003). Sutebusuton: A Japanese village on the British Columbia coast.

Yesaki, M., Steves, H., & Steves, K. (2005). Steveston cannery row: An illustrated history (2nd edition).