Artefact 4; Relocation of Japanese Canadians to Internment Camps

Citation: Library and Archives Canada. (n.d.). Japanese-Canadians being relocated to camps in the interior of British Columbia [Photograph]. Library and Archives Canada. C-057250. Retrieved from http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redirect?app=fonandcol&id=3193868&lang=eng

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This particularly sad image, taken in 1942, captures a pivotal moment in Canadian history where over 21,000 Japanese Canadians, constituting more than 90% of the population in British Columbia, were forcibly relocated to internment camps. These actions were authorized under the War Measures Act following the issuance of Order-in-Council P.C. 1486 by Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King's Cabinet. The directive targeted those living up to 160 km inland from the Pacific coast, branding them as security threats without evidence.

The photograph shows the initial phase of relocation, where families were uprooted and transported via Railway to Hastings Park in Vancouver, a facility ill-equipped for human habitation and originally intended for livestock. Men, women, and children were processed here before being sent further to remote ghost towns in the Kootenays or to labor on sugar beet farms in Alberta and Manitoba. Conditions were harsh, with no electricity or running water, and any resistance met with transfer to even more severe confinement in POW camps.

This mass displacement was not just a physical move but a stripping away of dignity and rights, as the government also seized and sold properties belonging to Japanese Canadians, using the proceeds to fund their own internment. 

Bibliography:

[1] Marsh, James H.. "Japanese Canadian Internment: Prisoners in their own Country." The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada. Article published February 23, 2012; Last Edited September 17, 2020.