Japanese Canadian Historic Powell Street Walking Tours

Tickets

Cost: $10.00
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It is not common knowledge that prior to the Incarceration, Displacement and Dispossession of 1942, the Powell Street corridor was once the home to 8000 Japanese Canadians and over 400 Japanese owned businesses. Today, there is an abundance of remaining history and architecture that tells the story of a community that once thrived in this unique area of Vancouver!

Regular tours will be held in English. Tours in Japanese can be offered upon special request. 日本語でのツアーも可能ですので、お気軽にご相談ください。 Tours will occur RAIN OR SHINE! :)

Why were the Japanese Canadians of Powell Street displaced?

With the outbreak of the war in late 1941, in April of 1942, the federal government, pressured by racist BC politicians, forcibly ordered 22,000 Japanese Canadians to relocate 100 miles east of the coast of British Columbia to remote ghost towns or open farm fields. Japanese Canadians were labelled as ‘enemy aliens’ and deemed a security threat to national security. The government confiscated their properties, businesses, and homes beginning in April of 1942 as a way to pay for their Incarceration. Men aged 18-40 were forced to go road camps as forced labour, and women and children were shipped off to government sponsored internment camps throughout BC's interior.

Japanese Canadians were not permitted to return to the Coast until 1949, four years after the war ended. Less than half of those interned returned to the coast. Many were deported to Japan or were forced to disperse across Canada.
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