Keeping Memories Alive
One survivor’s story will help connect a community to its past through the Merriwake interpretive site in Slocan.
The first thing Gene Kinoshita remembers is the snow.
He was seven years old when he stepped off a train into the Slocan Valley in November 1942, clutching what little his family had been allowed to carry.
“We had no idea where we were going,” he says. “We didn’t know what was waiting for us.”
What awaited was a Japanese Canadian internment camp, located three miles south of the village of Slocan. Today, a new interpretive site will honour people like Kinoshita, telling the story of what they were forced to endure while also strengthening community bonds by connecting residents to their past.
Keeping Memory Alive
Located along the rail trail in the heart of Slocan, the Merriwake Interpretive Centre will be a place to learn about and reflect on the history of Japanese Canadian internment in the Columbia Basin.
Constructed by the Slocan Valley Historical Society and designed by Kinoshita himself, a retired architect, the centre will preserve and share the stories of the thousands of Japanese Canadians who were forcibly uprooted from their homes and sent to internment camps during the Second World War, many of which were in the Basin.
At the heart of the site is the Merriwake, a 31-foot gillnetter built in 1929. Like many fishing vessels owned by Japanese Canadians, it was seized during the war and sold without its owners’ consent. Decades later, after being recovered from Kootenay Lake and restored by the Slocan Valley Historical Society, the boat has become a symbol of the livelihoods that were lost.
Supported in part by Columbia Basin Trust, the fully accessible interpretive centre will be open year-round at no cost. Through interpretive panels and the restored fishing boat, visitors will explore the history of Japanese Canadian internment and better understand its lasting impacts on individuals, families and communities throughout the Basin.
