An Ancestral Legacy Trip to the Slocan Valley

Arriving at Slocan City. Photo: Mariko Tanabe

Deepening perceptions about Japanese Canadian internment camps

by Mariko Tanabe, Dance Artist, Practitioner of Ancestral Healing, Master Somatic Movement Therapist and Certified Teacher of Body-Mind Centering

I have always been a dreamer, a dancer and a seeker. I have been engaged with a story that began long before I was born, and continues to unfold, bringing me along with it.

In this article, I write about my recent pilgrimage from my home in Montreal to the remote mountainous landscapes of Slocan Valley, where I travelled to walk upon the lands of this rugged interior where my family and their greater community were interned in prison camps during World War II.

How could I find the healing story for this intergenerational wound that carried the weight of my parents’ humiliation and unprocessed grief?

The story begins with the exploration of the actions and mysteries of my ancestors. They originated on the islands of Japan and immigrated to Vancouver around the turn of the last century. They left behind a country that was in turmoil and fraught with violence as it transitioned towards the modern era.

Mariko’s ritual practice by the lake and mountains. Photo: Unknown

Many decades later, I was born and raised in a suburb of Toronto in the early 1960s, when anti-Japanese sentiment was alive. It sliced through my heart like a knife on my first day of school, when I was jeered at with racial slurs and mockery by the other children. I was six years old.

Yet this was nothing like what my parents and their greater community endured.

My parents were born in Vancouver, where they lived with their families until WWII, when all Canadians of Japanese descent were forcibly removed from their homes, stripped of all possessions and sent to internment in camps away from the coast through the War Measures Act. (See the sidebar below: A Quick Historical Review of Japanese Canadian Internment).

Growing up, our family home was often filled with a heavy sense of melancholy. At times my father would fall into bursts of anger that I have come to recognize as the unprocessed pain and grief he was holding.

A Quick Historical Review of Japanese Canadian Internment

After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor during World War II, the Canadian government invoked the War Measures Act, stripping Japanese Canadians of their civil rights. A mass evacuation of Japanese Canadians began, and over 22,000 were removed from coastal areas and forced into internment camps throughout the interior of British Columbia. This internment permanently stripped them of their homes and possessions. According to the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, the internment of Japanese Canadians is acknowledged as one of the worst human rights violations in B.C.’s history.

The West Kootenay region of the Columbia Basin contained the highest concentration of Japanese Canadian internment camps, with numerous road camps and nine primary “interior housing centres.” Approximately 12,000 internees were living in these makeshift centres, with a massive concentration in the Slocan Valley. This large influx of Japanese Canadians exceeded the local populations, causing mixed reactions. Locals were involved in leasing land to the British Columbia Security Commission. Japanese Canadians worked on farms and in sawmills, fisheries, schools and local businesses.

Many internees became woven into the communities and stayed on after the war, and there are some remaining sites in the valley commemorating this history. Not one Japanese Canadian was ever charged with treason.

The prison camps were an experience that was rarely spoken of in my family, yet something kept beckoning me towards them. How could I find the healing story for this intergenerational wound that carried the weight of my parents’ humiliation and unprocessed grief?

My artistic practice began to reveal deep ancestral voices that were longing to be heard; my creative process of meditation and movement opened a direct transmission of other body and mind states that fuelled my visions. Stories were being revealed as the boundaries between past and present softened the harsh linearity of time. I was ecstatic to experience these connections and how embodying them established some profound themes and voices.

After more than 20 years of research and development, I went to meet this history by visiting the Slocan Valley. I learned a lot through historical archives and the many personal accounts I heard from the growing collections of stories from camp survivors. From walking on these lands where my family and others in the Japanese community had been sent, I could feel how they arrived in this unfamiliar and remote valley in a state of utter shock and full of loss. They endured harsh conditions and adversity. Some families were separated.

My perceptions deepened. I discovered that the communities were recognized for their ingenuity and resourcefulness.

For example, my father, Luke Tanabe, had just completed his Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of British Columbia when he became one of 25 internees who went to work on the Premier of Ontario’s farms in Ontario. His parents and younger sister were placed in the camp at New Denver, and his older sister was placed at the Christina Lake Internment Camp with her husband and infant child.

My mother, Ruby Miyake, and her family was sent to the camp at Slocan City, which was a ghost town perched on the south shore of Slocan Lake. Her father, Eiju Miyake, was the dentist for the camp. Environmental Activist David Suzuki and his family were also interned there. In this short video, Suzuki gives us a compelling first-person account and reflections of his experiences in the camp, and how they shaped the path and purpose of his life: “In Reflection: David Suzuki,” by the Library and Archives of Canada.

Walking the shores of Slocan Lake. Photo: Mariko Tanabe

My perceptions deepened. I discovered that the communities were recognized for their ingenuity and resourcefulness. I learned how these Japanese Canadians transformed their drab conditions with gardens to grow food and flowers. They fished and learned how to forage wild plants, built furniture with their carpentry skills and created art from the rocks and other natural materials.These discoveries brought me tears of joy and a sense of pride that further grounded this legacy journey. I continue to feel guided by the ancient spirit of these lands and am grateful to the Sinixt, Ktunaxa and Syilx Okanagan people who have inhabited and stewarded this valley for thousands of years.

Some deep wounds need to be witnessed in order to heal. This can require the support of the community that we may be held, and hold each other. May we listen, and find the courage to grieve. None of us is meant to do this alone.

My ancestors and the spirit of this valley feel woven into my body like a grounding network of wisdom and love. And my heart soars.

Some deep wounds need to be witnessed in order to heal.

From connecting with the ancient mountaintops and the eternal cycles of the forests, rivers and lakes, I feel as though I could fly across their timeless dimensions as I hold a prayer for each one of us, and the generations to come.

I am looking forward to returning to the valley soon, to discover how the story unfolds.

Slocan Lake at dusk. Photo: Mariko Tanabe

Acknowledgements from Mariko Tanabe: “I am grateful for this life and the legacy of my ancestors. I wish to acknowledge my teachers Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen and Dr. Daniel Foor, whose brilliant visions and practices have enabled me to find my path in this lifetime. And many thanks to Rachel Harris, Jane Gabriels, Ruby Truly, Hiromoto Ida, Rachel Jamison Webster, Catherine Mackay, and countless others whose guidance and support were invaluable in grounding and shaping this journey.”