Trolling out of Tofino in 1941 was good. The war in Europe meant that prices were high. We were making good money; I think the average Co-op member was making $4,000, which was big money in those days. Mary and I had the two young boys and life seemed very good. My mother, Ine, was healthy and she helped to look after the children and the garden. My brother Thomas turned out to be a natural born fisherman and he was consistently high boat in the Co-op. It was a wonderful year where everything seemed possible. December 7, 1941 changed all that. Japan attacked Pearl Harbour and all our limitless possibilities crashed in a whirlwind of newsflashes, rumours and innuendo. Our tranquil little world was turned upside down because Japan had declared war on the United States. I firmly believe that we Japanese Canadians were swept up by this struggle between these two nations and we were helpless as the world we knew disappeared forever…
On December 15, 1941, our boats were ordered to New Westminster. Soldiers were sent to accompany each boat. I suppose it was to ensure that we didn’t help the enemy infiltrate the West Coast. If they had done their homework, they would have realized that was not a possibility. Hysteria stirred up by the media and local politicians stirring up the “yellow peril” image made the decision to single out the Japanese Canadians an easy task. We were not equipped to deal with this violent backlash. We were sitting ducks. Anyway, the soldier assigned to my boat, the CROWN, was a decent enough fellow. He was a prairie boy, born and raised in Melville, Saskatchewan. He had never been at sea and during the voyage to New Westminster, he was dreadfully seasick. I heard similar stories from the other fishermen too. Funny how individual hakujin Canadians were so decent, yet from the newspapers and radio, we Japanese Canadians were all traitors.
In 1942, around February or March, a small floatplane circled around Tofino Harbour. One of the other members of the Co-op, a vicepresident and I thought that it might be some news about us. We went to meet the plane. There, we heard the orders, you have twelve hours to pack your belongings and be evacuated. We told them no way could we do that. They finally relented and allowed us twenty-four hours. That was all the time we had to gather up our essentials. We thought that we were coming back. Another lie! …
The day of departure came. We were all down at the Government Wharf with our duffle bags to wait for the MAQUINNA. It was March of 1942. We would not see the West Coast and Tofino for another ten years… The MAQUINNA took us up the Alberni Inlet to Port Alberni. It was a silent passage and there was much weeping among the women and children as we slipped away from the Government Dock… In Port Alberni, the Provincial Police were waiting for us at the docks. They took us to the local Police Station. After they checked their lists, something that would become routine to us, we were loaded on the CN train to Nanaimo…
At Nanaimo, we boarded the ferry to Vancouver. By then, the shock of being uprooted had given way to anger at the way we were being treated. Those of us who had been educated in the Canadian school system were wondering where in the world the ideals of British “fair play” had vanished. Why was this happening to us? Little did we know all the political behind the scenes moves that were occurring in the legislatures of Victoria and Ottawa. We were literally “pawns” caught up in the hysteria of the threat of “ the yellow peril”.
From the ferry in Vancouver, we were loaded like cattle into a bus and taken to the infamous Hastings Park. It was a bloody horse stable that they used for the local livestock shows! It reeked of horse manure and horse urine. This was to be our home for the next week. The women started to cry and the children became upset. Is this any way to treat citizens? Anyway we cleaned out the stinky hay and cleaned up the stables as best we could. It was after all a horse stable and not meant for human habitation. We were starting to find out how much some “fellow” Canadians hated us. The next day the gang from Cumberland arrived. There was a buzz of conversation as we “one-day veterans” of Hastings Park greeted them. “What have you heard?” “Where are the possible destinations?” “Would we be allowed to stay together with our families?” No one had any answers; we were looking for information from anyone and everyone.
By the end of the week, we had converted the stables into makeshift sleeping quarters. Blankets served as walls to designate one family’s living area from another. We were even allowed to get passes to leave the Park so that we might do some shopping. Imagine that, it was all too surreal, here we were prisoners of the country and we were downtown in Woodward’s shopping. The local Chinese wore tags on their clothes that proclaimed them Chinese. I guess they didn’t want to be mistaken for us.
The third day the Victoria gang arrived. The Nisei from Victoria were more educated than the rest of us. However, they had no answers. By the end of two days, a list was posted that had one hundred and twenty names, all men, on it. The men named were to be shipped out to Ontario to work on the roads. They would be separated from their families. I had two young kids and my name as well as all the Tofino gang and all the young men in Hastings Park were on that list. There was an explosion of outrage as we absorbed this latest order. Many of the men were shouting, “ Damn, I will never go!” We held a secret meeting in the back and posted lookouts. All of us agreed that we would not accept any order that separated us from our families…
One week after we had arrived in Hastings Park, the remaining men on that list were assembled in front of the Park. We were lined up and again, a roll call was made. Once more, we were being reduced to anonymous numbers, rounded up like cattle and shipped out. At the CPR station in Vancouver, the men were in a vile mood. There was much shouting and cursing. “How in the world could Canada treat us Canadians in such a terrible way?” “Here we were Canadian born men, being shipped out thousands of miles to a work camp.” “Our wives, our children, our parents were left on their own. What in the Hell was going on?” “ Who in the world was looking out after our interests?” It was one of the loneliest moments in my life. When the train stopped at a railroad crossing, we looked out the windows and cursed every hakujin that we saw. This was not “our” Canada anymore.
(Transcribed by Dennis Madokoro: excerpt from article in Nikkei Images, Spring 2002)