O-Bon in Chimunesu: A Community Remembered

Prior to the Second World War, when Canada's official policy of internment changed the lives of Japanese-Canadians forever, the Vancouver Island town of Chemainus ("Chimunesu") was home to a thriving Japanese-Canadian community, whose members struggled to adapt to the difficulties of life in a new country, while at the same time keeping their own traditions alive. During the war, Japanese-Canadians on the west coast were shunted off to internment camps in the British Columbia interior, and were not permitted to return until 1949. Most decided to take up new roots elsewhere, and what had been a significant community in Chemainus was relegated to memory.