Japanese Canadian exhibit will fill gaps in Maple Ridge history, society says

The organizers of a new project are hoping to honour the hundreds of Japanese Canadians who once called Maple Ridge home. 

On Tuesday, the CEED Centre Society presented a plan to Maple Ridge council to create a permanent exhibit in the city that explains the significant role Japanese Canadians had in the city before the Second World War.

“This project’s objectives are to restore a missing narrative,” stated Martin Dmitrieff, president of the CEED Centre, a non-profit that backs community-building projects.

“There are gaps and many different places in our community where we see remnants of that history, but they are not well told.” 

While it isn’t clear yet what the exhibit will look like yet, Dmitrieff said it would be based on interviews and historical research.

CEED is also looking to create a digital resource to go along with a physical building.

Japanese Canadians made up about 30 per cent of Maple Ridge’s total population in the late 1920s, according to information from the Maple Ridge Museum. 

Many of those people who settled in Maple Ridge lived on family-run farms. 

In 1927, Japanese Canadians owned roughly 5,700 acres of farmland across B.C. — more than 2,300 acres of that land was in Maple Ridge alone. 

For four decades, the Japanese Canadian community in Maple Ridge developed agricultural and cultural hubs. They started businesses, built temples, and constructed the city’s first greenhouses. 

But in 1942, that landscape started to shift. 

Japanese residents in B.C. were forced to sell their land. Thousands were relocated to internment camps throughout the province’s Interior. 

At the time, Maple Ridge council unanimously supported internment and deportation, according to archives from the Maple Ridge Museum. 

Their land was sold and redistributed to other people across the city. 

“My own family farm had a dilapidated building that I did not know until much later in life was the remnants of a Japanese farm that was sold to a World War Two veteran upon his return,” Dmitrieff stated. 

“There’s a lot [of history] that needs to be told.” 

Why CEED got involved

In 1990, the CEED Centre took ownership of an old Japanese schoolhouse in Maple Ridge, relocating it from its location on 232 Street and Dewdney Trunk Road to 223 Street to save it from demolition. 

The building re-opened later that year and was officially registered as a heritage building in 2007. 

To get the new project off the ground, the CEED Centre is hoping to partner with the Japanese Canadian Legacies Society and other local Japanese organizations to conduct interviews and jumpstart their information-gathering process. 

“We want to capture [that history] before the people that retain those memories are lost as well,” Dmitrieff stated.

The CEED Centre is seeking $400,000 in funding over three years from the province’s heritage site grant to support the project. 

Earlier this week, the organization asked Maple Ridge Council to write a letter of support for their project plans. 

Maple Ridge Mayor Dan Ruimy voiced his support for the project at the Oct. 10 council meeting, acknowledging that the city has received their request to write a letter. 

He added that staff are identifying the requirements of the grant and will then write a letter for council to approve. 

Coun. Korleen Carreras also applauded the organization’s goal to restore Japanese Canadian history in the city. 

“I think it’s a really important history in our community,” she stated. 

Christian Cowley, executive director at the CEED Centre, added that the organization may look to create similar exhibits in Pitt Meadows and Mission as well. 

The CEED Centre is expecting to prepare and submit the grant — in consultation with the Japanese Canadian Legacies Society — by January 2024. Interviews and development of the exhibit are slated to take place throughout the rest of 2024, before the project is complete in either 2025 or 2026.

Ultimately, Cowley stated, the city has a responsibility to acknowledge this history. 

Whenever the exhibit is complete, it will help future generations understand the important role Japanese Canadians had in Maple Ridge. 

It will also allow people with Japanese heritage to return to the city, and potentially, relieve trauma. 

“Former residents can return to the place where their story started and start to experience some intergenerational healing,” he stated.