Japanese consul general to tour Slocan area
By Nelson Daily Editor
By Timothy Schafer, The Nelson Daily
The highest ranking Japanese officer on Canadian soil will be visiting several areas of Slocan Valley, the Kyowakai Society in New Denver announced.
Kyowakai Society president Gail Swanson said the consul general will come in March to pay homage to the thousands of Japanese Canadians that were interned in the area during the Second World War.
“He was supposed to come next week but his trip has been cancelled (by winter),” she said.
Although travel plans are postponed, the importance of the consul general seeing the Nikkei Centre and the area are paramount, said Swanson, particularly since the area has received considerable publicity in Japanese language newspapers in the last few years.
“I’m sure he has read all of that too and has realized how important it is for him to come and see our centre and this area,” she said.
The purpose of the society is to tend to the Nikkei Centre, designated a national historic site two years ago by the federal government. It is the same society that was formed when the Japanese were first brought to the area for internment.
Kyowakai means working together peacefully. The Society built the centre to keep alive the heritage of the area and the struggles those interned had to endure.
The centre site consists of five buildings, of which three are original shacks built to house the interred people.
Many artifacts such as stoves and furnishings are preserved, as are some personal effects of the displaced people. It also features a Japanese garden designed by Roy Sumi, a former supervisor of the Nitobe Memorial Garden at UBC.
The consul general will be taking part in a tour of the centre and the Japanese Gardens on the waterfront, traveling to Sandon, Slocan and Lemon Creek.
An officer of the Japanese consul general has only been in the Slocan Valley one other time, right after the completion of the Nikkei Centre in 1984.
The Consulate General of Japan serves the jurisdiction of British Columbia and the Yukon. Japan has five consulate general offices in Canada, including Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa.
For more information on the Nikkei Centre, click here.
