Japanese Canadian Internment Sites: hidden history of BC

by Ryan Ellan  | Archaeological Sites, Cultural Heritage Centre, House Museum/Homestead, Park/Landscape

 In 2017-18 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Internment, Highway Legacy Signs were installed at the actual Internment Camp and Roadcamp locations around BC to honour the history of 22,000 Canadians of Japanese Canadians who were interned to these remote locations.
Tashme Internment Camp was the largest Internment camp in BC with 2600 residents.  It was also the closest to the coast, being just outside the 100 mile exclusion zone.  The Sunshine Valley Tashme Museum, formerly the original butcher shop in the camp, now tells the history of Tashme in original structures, a reconstruction of a tar-paper shack which housed residents, exhibits and displays.
The East Lillooet Internment Camp was located on the east side of the Fraser River, only connected to the white township on the west side of the Fraser River by the Forbidden Bridge.  Now only 2 hours north of Whistler on Highway 99, the Internment Camp is marked by the East Lillooet Internment Memorial Garden, which overlooks the original camp, now a private farm.
The New Denver Internment Camp was located in the Slocan Valley, now known as the Kootenay Rockies.  This area had the highest concentration of Internees, with close to 10,000 out of the 22,000 Japanese Canadians relocated to these camps, built on open farm fields.  The Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre in New Denver tells the story of the New Denver Internment in a Memorial Park with preserved original tar-paper shacks of the residents.
At the Slocan Extension (Lemon Creek, Popoff, Bay Farm & Slocan City), Kaslo and Greenwood Internment Camp sites, Highway Legacy Signs have been installed to honour history where it happened.

Places

Sunshine Valley Tashme Museum

Hope, British Columbia

Tashme - Canada's largest Japanese Canadian internment camp during WWII.

East Lillooet Internment Site Memorial Garden

Lillooet, British Columbia

East Lillooet was a Japanese Canadian self-supporting Internment site from 1942-49.

Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre, National Historic Site

New Denver, British Columbia

NIMC tells the story Japanese Canadians forcibly relocated during World War II.

Greenwood Museum and Visitor Centre

Greenwood, British Columbia

Greenwood was the first of 10 Japanese Canadian Internment sites during World War II.

Slocan Extension Roadside Interpretive Sign (Japanese Canadian History)

Slocan, British Columbia

Sign that commemorates the Japanese Canadian internment camps of the lower Slocan Valley

Langham Cultural Centre

Kaslo, British Columbia

123-year-old Provincial Heritage Site with theatre, galleries, & Japanese Canadian Museum

Road Map

Hope, British Columbia to Kaslo, British Columbia

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