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As the director of a non-profit museum, president of the Friends of the BC Archives, and an adjunct professor of BC history, Kelly Black has gained a unique perspective on the highs and lows of practicing public history in British Columbia. In his presentation to the recent BCHF conference, Dr. Black highlights some of his adventures in public history work over the last few years and describe the impact that waning government support is having on access, labour, and understanding about the past.

Black is the executive director at Point Ellice House Museum and Gardens in Victoria. Kelly has more than a decade of experience in heritage, museums, and non-profit management and he received his PhD in Canadian Studies from Carleton University in 2018. Kelly is also an adjunct professor in the Department of History at Vancouver Island University and current president of the Friends of the BC Archives. He lives with his wife and son in the Cowichan Valley.

The mistreatment of Japanese Canadians during the 1940s has traditionally been understood in terms of a temporary, wartime internment. Drawing upon the conclusions of a major, national research project, UVIC Professor Jordan Stanger-Ross and Michael Abe argue in this presentation to the recent BCHF conference that the traditional perspective fails to capture the injustice done.

Instead, we should see this history as involving the deliberate and permanent destruction of home and community over the course of a decade. His talk will try to change how you think about the origins, unfolding, and legacies of Canada’s internment era, replacing a story of regrettable political action at a time of war with a history of deliberate harm and widespread accountability.

Stanger-Ross is a professor and the University of Victoria Provost’s Engaged Scholar, 2020-25. He is the director of Landscapes of Injustice, a seven-year multi-sector and community-engaged project to research and tell the history of the forced sale of Japanese-Canadian-owned property during the 1940s.

Michael Abe is a third generation (sansei) Japanese Canadian (Nikkei) and past president of the Victoria Nikkei Cultural Society. He was the project manager on Landscapes of Injustice.

Collections manager Lisa Uyeda holds a lunchbox that belonged to Donald Masayuki who used it while attending school in Revelstoke where his family was reunited. He later became a dentist in Coquitlam. Photo: Mark Forsythe

By Mark Forsythe

Lisa Uyeda has the archivist’s touch. The Collections Manager at the Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Centre is wearing white gloves as she gently places a drawing of a POW camp on a table. The scene includes a barracks, a guard holding a rifle, and a Japanese Canadian prisoner with a large circle on his back.

Drawn and coloured onto a piece of birch bark 80 years ago, it’s now showing its age. The bark has ruptured into two pieces, and scotch tape covers small cracks. Why birch bark? “It was very difficult to have access to paper. It wasn’t until much later in the war that the YMCA started donating paper, pencils and musical instruments,” says Uyeda. The artist is unknown, but the search continues.

The POW camp is thought to be at Angler, located on the northern shore of Lake Superior. It’s also where Uyeda’s great-grandfather, Kamezo Okashimo, was incarcerated in 1942. While Kamezo was behind barbed wire, his wife, Hisayo, and children were interned at the Lemon Creek camp in BC’s Slocan Valley, living in a small, rudimentary shack. They had been rounded up from their Powell Street neighbourhood along with 21,000 other Japanese Canadians living on the coast, then stripped of their rights, goods, and property.

Instructions for pow camp on the left, and names of prisoners at Angler, Ont. including Lisa Uyeda’s great-grandfather, Kamezo Okashimo. Photo: Mark Forsythe

The triptych of camp images drawn on birch bark is thought to have been created at Angler POW camp in Ontario. Nikkei Museum still hopes to learn who drew these compelling images. Photo: Mark Forsythe

Uyeda says this about life in the camp: “Even though they made a lot of friends, they really felt the oppression that they were living under, and the loss. And we kind of still feel that, generations later.” Kamezo Okashimo would not reunite with Hisayo and their children until late The family never returned to BC.

Uyeda is fourth-generation Japanese Canadian and seventh-generation English/Irish; it wasn’t until her late teens and early 20s that she heard stories about the internment of her father’s family. Determined to uncover more about this part of her heritage, she pursued archival studies, completed a UBC master’s degree, and for seven years has worked at the Nikkei National Museum, the largest repository of Japanese Canadian archival materials in Canada.

“Being able to work here and use my archival degree for the benefit of Japanese Canadian history has been rewarding beyond words. I found my grandmother’s school photo in Lemon Creek. I had never seen her at that age before, let alone in an internment camp. Finding my great-grandfather’s name on the POW list—I had no idea. It was life changing.”

Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Centre celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2020. The facility is elegant and welcoming, with an emphasis on wood, light, curves, and open space. It is a busy cultural hub, with dozens of community program offerings, exhibit space, a language school, and a summer Nikkei Garden Farmers’ Market.

The breadth of archival holdings is impressive: 43,000 photos and negatives (remarkable, since Japanese Canadians were not allowed to own cameras during the Second World War), films (including Tomojiro Inouye’s home movies that chronicle life before, during and after the Second World War), a reference library, documents, correspondence, and newspaper clippings. (Most material is available digitally online at https://centre.nikkeiplace.org.)

Uyeda reaches for a critical part of the collection—a large fishing boat ledger kept by Kishizo Kimura. He was one of four people on the Japanese Fishing Boat Disposal Committee which illegally sold more than 1,000 Japanese Canadian fishing vessels confiscated by the Canadian Navy.

“We have the original ledger that documents every single boat that was sold and whether or not it was a forced sale, or whether Kimura was able to help proceed with the sale and get consent from the owner,” says Uyeda.

Example from the fishing boat ledger of a forced sale. Valued at $400, it was sold to BC Packers for just $150. Photo: Mark Forsythe

His son offered up a great story: “If his parents were going out for dinner or a friend’s house, and if the kids were going to be home alone with the records, he would actually take them and leave them in trust with his neighbour because Kishizo Kimura knew how important they were.” Today they are invaluable. “Thousands and thousands of people were affected by the forced sale of these vessels. Being able to preserve these records and have them available for family history research or Canadian history research, it’s just a remarkable thing.”

We sometimes forget that Japanese Canadians from BC served Canada with honour during the First World War, and then were later forced into internment camps during the Second World War. By 1945 the British were putting pressure on Canada to enlist able-bodied Japanese Canadians.

Thomas Kunito Shoyama of Kamloops, editor of The New Canadian newspaper, served with the Canadian Army’s S-20 Intelligence Corps. He later distinguished himself as a champion of human rights, helped usher in Medicare in Saskatchewan, served on the Economic Council of Canada, was a federal deputy minister, and eventually helped raise funds to build the Nikkei National Museum. He died in Victoria in 2006. This “enemy alien” would most certainly be proud of what the Nikkei National Museum has achieved: sharing this compelling and essential collection with all Canadians.

Writing Wrongs: Japanese Canadian Protest Letters of the 1940s

Though our journey is a unique one, you might recognize its echoes in today’s headlines. It resonates with continuing stories of dislocation, migration, and struggles to build from fragments an idea of home…Follow the stories of the Japanese Canadian community from Japanese emigration to building communities in Canada, forcible removal from their homes to internment sites, and the legacy of standing up for justice that continues to this day. Japanese Canadians’ letters of protest speak powerfully from the archives about the meaning of citizenship, justice, and equal rights.” — Writing Wrongs website


Writing Wrongs: Japanese Canadian Protest Letters of the 1940s (https://writingwrongs-parolesperdues.ca) is a Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Centre online exhibit. It was inspired by a file of approximately 300 letters of protest stored at Library and Archives Canada. These letters were written to the Canadian government by dispossessed citizens of Japanese heritage.

Director and curator Sherri Kajiwara notes that she and her team “worked directly with descendants of the letter writers for much of the video content on the site (at https://bit.ly/3hV33Ia). Researching, contacting, and building relationships with them was an important step in our responsibility to our community and for authenticity of narration.”

While the site is narrative for most of the chapters, the final section, which includes the original letters of protest, is accessible to all viewers as primary source material.

This online project was developed with the support of the Digital Museums Canada investment program. Digital Museums Canada is managed by the Canadian Museum of History, with the financial support of the Government of Canada. Creative visual content and videography was developed by Tabata Productions. NGX Interactive was essential in developing the digital exhibit and provided web hosting support.

Mark Forsythe travels through BC and back in time, exploring the unique work of British Columbia Historical Federation members.

The Steveston Tennis Club poses with agricultural tools circa 1922. Photo: Nikkei National Museum, Nishihata Family collection, 2010.80.2.10

Even the smallest historic object, lost or actively discarded, decades or even centuries ago, has a story to tell. In this presentation to the recent BC Historical Federation conference, Tom Bown gives a brief introduction to the types of historic artifacts that find their way to the historic archaeology collection of the Royal BC Museum. When the written word does not exist, what role do these objects have in telling the history of marginalized populations in BC?

Also, this talk considers some of the challenges of historic archaeology collections, as well as considering how this resource is currently being managed in British Columbia.

Bown is a volunteer research associate in archaeology at the Royal British Columbia Museum. After finishing a BSc at the University of Victoria, he worked several years for the RBCM archaeology section prior to a career with Natural Resources Canada.

He has been involved with numerous archaeological projects over the past 40 years with a specialty of identifying historic archaeological artifacts. Bown is a past president of the Archaeological Society of BC, a member of the Society for Historic Archaeology and an on-call staff member of Millennia Research Ltd.

Bill Wilson of Nanaimo was the recipient of a BCHF Certificate of Merit at the federation’s annual gala on June 5.

Wilson is the author of numerous works about soda manufacturers and brewers of British Columbia, including the recent Soda Kings of BC & the Yukon volumes. Actively sharing and inspiring others to take up interest in unknown and unearthed bottles, Bill has carried out “tireless continued research that takes numerous small facts from many sources to weave into coherent stories of early British Columbians.”

His work, the product of almost four decades of diligent digging, has been instrumental in helping heritage-minded citizens and researchers understand their collections.

Kevin Eastwood and Siren Screen Productions are the recipients of a BCHF Award of Recognition for British Columbia: An Untold History. The award was presented at the federation’s annual conference awards gala online on June 4.

This four-part historical documentary highlights the people, forces and events that shaped British Columbia. The series, which focuses upon under-told and untold histories of marginalized British Columbians, weaves together Indigenous, Asian, Black, and European truths to highlight the past.

The series consulted Elders, authors, histories, families and descendants of historical figures to create a pluralistic and wholistic understanding of topics such as labour and persistence, migration and resilience, nature and coexistence and change and resistance.

The British Columbia Historical Federation announces that Marlin (Marl) Brown of Fort Nelson is a recipient of an Award of Recognition. The award was presented at the federation’s annual conference awards gala online on June 4.

History and Marl Brown went hand in hand. The founder of the Fort Nelson Historical Society in 1977, Marl was a pillar as the first and only curator of the Fort Nelson Heritage Museum until his passing in 2021.

“Marlin [was] the first one at the museum in the morning and the last one to leave at night. The museum, and everything in it is his passion: his life’s work. […] Because of him, the museum will be enjoyed by future generations for many years to come.”

You can watch a short video about him below created by Destination British Columbia.

A story about efforts to rethink a Victoria heritage site’s story has won the Anne and Philip Yandle Best Article Award from the BC Historical Federation. 

Explaning Settlers to Ourselves: Rethinking interpretive narratives at heritage sites by Kelly Black was published in the Spring 2021 edition of British Columbia History magazine. 

Image; Kelly Black

Black is the executive director of Point Ellice House Museum and Gardens in Victoria and an adjunct professor in the department of history at Vancouver Island University.

His article looks at how previous interpretation of the historic site failed to mention owner Peter O’Reilly’s 18 years as Indian Reserve commissioner and focused instead on the romantic aspects of Victorian-era life. In recent years, the non-profit society that cares for Point Ellis House has reassessed and reimagined the site. 

Thirty-five articles published in British Columbia History in 2021 were eligible for the prize, which includes $250 and a certificate. A panel of judges chose the winning article.

One judge called the story “a very readable, well-written, well-argued, eye-opening investigation into how historical sites in BC (and other regions) have omitted open narratives about colonization, and how one site is working to change that.

“It advances big-picture knowledge of BC history by encouraging all of us to think critically about how history is presented to us (or not presented to us), both as historical consumers and historical stewards.”  

“I am grateful to the BCHF and adjudication committee for this recognition,” Black says. “It’s more important than ever to revisit our historical narratives in BC and it was a pleasure to write about this for BC History magazine, a leading source for engagement with the past.” 

The award was announced Saturday at the BCHF’s annual conference, co-hosted by the Victoria Historical Society and held virtually. Black was also a speaker at the conference.

An honorable mention was also presented to Robert Ratcliffe Taylor for his article, Emily Carr, Cartoonist, which appeared in the winter 2021 issue and looked a little-known aspect of the artist’s work and reproduced a number of her editorial cartoons that appeared in a Victoria journal in 1905.

Philip Yandle was the editor, publisher, and distributor of the former BC Historical News from 1968 to 1977 and his wife Anne was also very active in the magazine and was the longtime book review editor.

This year’s recipient of the W. Kaye Lamb $1,000 scholarship from the BCHF is Lydia Kinasewich of UNBC (pictured) for her paper called “From Health Resort to Pleasure Resort: Re-Constructing Harrison Hot Springs as a Tourist Destination, 1920-30.” This was in the third and fourth year category.

Kinasewich says she wanted to examine how health beliefs shaped tourism, “and the attempts to create a pleasure resort at Harrison Hot Spring provided an excellent opportunity to consider how health and tourism converged in early 20th century British Columbia.”

Kinasweich is working on an honors history thesis under the supervision of Dr. Ben Bradley on how food production and distribution was regulated in early-20th century BC, specifically looking at federal and provincial legislation of the province’s dairy industry.

The scholarship announcement was made at the BCHF conference gala on June 4. The W. Kaye Lamb scholarships are presented for student works relating to the history of British Columbia. The work can be on any topic related to the history of BC and must be created by a student for a course taken at a university or college.

The judges decided not to award a prize this year in the first and second year category.

Laila Axén is the inaugural winner of the BCHF Cultural Resource Accessibility Award, presented at the federation’s annual gala on June 4. This award honours excellence in cultural resource management work which aims to help connect British Columbians with their history and comes with a $500 prize.

Axén founded the Swedish Heritage in British Columbia Museum and Archives with “nothing but two empty hands” in 2017. Noticing a lack of archival and museological organizations dedicated specifically to Swedish heritage, she took it upon herself to prevent photographs, objects and cultural materials from being tossed into the landfill.

She started from scratch, recruiting volunteers and board members while locating space for the new organization while purchasing digital cataloguing software, scanners and more to make the holdings publicly available. Today, Axén, now in her 80s, is returning to school to learn about archival practices to ensure ongoing preservation and improved access to British Columbia’s Swedish-related materials into the future.  

The BCHF also presented two honourable mentions in this category.

As more and more initiatives were taken online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Vancouver Island Local History Society who operate Point Ellice House Museum, did not shy away from the opportunity to try something new to keep their visitors connected with cultural resources. The society undertook many new projects, including a series of YouTube videos and the transcription of documents related to the O’Reilly family to allow for improved legibility and remote access.

Partnering with graduate students from the Public History program at the University of Victoria, museum staff undertook the digitization and online exhibition of Point Ellice’s calling card collection, providing new resources and biographies for researchers to delve into the social life of the O’Reilly family. The society provided the acceptance video below.

The British Columbia Regional Digitized History project of the University of BC Okanagan and many partner organizations supports digital public access to unique and under-utilized holdings found in collections throughout British Columbian communities.

Originally started five years ago as the Digitized Okanagan History, the project helps “tackle the challenges of digitization on a regional basis across many different repositories” and includes over 43,000 photographs, 22,000 newspaper issues and hundreds of oral histories. Today, 44 partnering organizations across the Okanagan and Kootenay-Columbia areas have joined with plans to expand into the Thompson Nicola region.