Salt Spring Island Archives
The exact date of the arrival of the first Japanese immigrant to Saltspring is not known, but there is textual evidence that it was well before 1900. Very early in the 20th century settlers from Japan arrived who would put down deep roots on the island; literally and figuratively, for many of those people came to be Saltspring’s most productive farmers. In the decades prior to WW2, the island was a net exporter of food, attributable in large part to the enterprise and hard work of its Japanese Canadian inhabitants. All of that was torn asunder following the bombing of Pearl Harbor during the Second World War, which led to the uprooting and exile of Japanese Canadians, and the dispossession of their property. Almost uniquely in Canada, one family, the Murakamis, returned to the island and stayed, and in the following decades waged a long struggle to reestablish themselves in a not always welcoming community. Today they are the lodestone for Saltspring’s vibrant and growing Nikkei community.
This section of the Salt Spring Island Archives documents the very significant dispossession of Japanese Canadian property that occurred during the Second World War; it also acknowledges that Japanese Canadians were unequal partners in the colonial project that dispossessed the original owners of this land. ‘Salt Spring Island’ has been part of the homelands of the Hul'qumi’num- and SENĆOŦEN-speaking peoples since time immemorial. These include but may not be limited to: Penálaxeth’ - Penelakut, Quw’utsun - Cowichan, Lyackson, Stz’uminus - Chemainus, SȾÁUTW - Tsawout, W̱JOȽEȽP - Tsartlip, BOḰEĆEN - Pauquachin, W̱SIḴEM - Tseycum, MÁLEXEȽ - Malahat, and Halalt.
We gratefully acknowledge support from the Japanese Canadian Legacies Society.
