Description du lieu patrimonial

The historic place consists of communities in B.C.'s Fraser Valley that were historically the homes, farms and businesses of Japanese Canadians. The Fraser Valley is an important ecological, agricultural and industrial valley of the Fraser River between Vancouver and Hope. The historic place includes communities such as the Maple Ridge communities of Haney, Hammond and Whonnock as well as Mission, Langley, Abbotsford, Rosedale, Chilliwack, Aldergrove, Mount Lehman, Clayburn and others.

Valeur patrimoniale

Japanese communities in the Fraser Valley together have historic, economic, scientific, cultural and social value related to Japanese Canadians' involvement in B.C.'s agricultural industry and as places that exemplify several historical themes in Japanese Canadian history.

Communities in the Fraser Valley represent the many Japanese Canadian contributions to B.C.'s agricultural growth, particularly their domination of the strawberry-growing industry in the Fraser Valley. Despite the only land available to them being less productive, rocky, wooded, or on steep slopes, the Japanese Canadian labourers were able to envision the potential for small-scale, intensive strawberry cultivation in the area. Working together, families cleared and cultivated the marginal lands, helping to pioneer strawberry farming in the Fraser Valley in the 1920s, with their farms well-established by the 1940s.

The Fraser Valley Japanese Canadian communities demonstrate the flexibility and innovation of the farmers working in the agricultural industry. While strawberries remained the primary crop, the potential for market saturation lead farmers to diversify to other agricultural products such as raising chickens and cultivating a variety of fruits and vegetables. Greenhouses were introduced to produce tomatoes and cucumbers, and ornamental flower farms yielded chrysanthemums and other varieties. The cultivation of hops for brewing ale became an important activity; Fraser Valley farmers were just beginning to grow hops in quantity with the onset of World War II.

The Nokai, or farmers' cooperatives, found in communities throughout the Fraser Valley demonstrate how Japanese Canadians worked together for common social and economic good in the face of discrimination. The Fraser Valley Nokai were established for creating a larger-scale agricultural economy, the shared rental of farming equipment, purchasing supplies, and for marketing the area's agricultural products. The Federation of Fraser Valley Farmers, a marketing union established in 1933 as an organization that would unify all Japanese Canadian farmers in the region, is a symbol of this cooperation. The membership of Japanese Canadian strawberry farmers in the BC Fruit Growers' Association also demonstrates the willingness of Japanese Canadian farmers to be associated with the province's fruit farming community while enduring suspicion and discrimination.

Social value is found in the community life of the Fraser Valley farming families, with the Nokai functioning as benevolent societies that looked after their members' needs, social activities, children's Japanese language education and the provision of assistance in times of need. Other community institutions included Japanese language schools (in East Mission, Mission, Mount Lehman, Whonnock and Haney), a Buddhist temple, Japanese Christian churches, Judo clubs and others. Founded in 1954, the Fraser Valley Buddhist Temple in Abbotsford is significant for its use as a post-war gathering place for Japanese Canadians who had managed to move back to the B.C. coast; many of the members were originally dislocated farmers from the Fraser Valley.

As with other Japanese Canadians in B.C., families in the Fraser Valley were stripped of their homes, farms, businesses, possessions, freedom, and civil rights in 1942 during World War II. The Fraser Valley families were removed to sugar beet farms in Alberta and Manitoba in community units. Japanese Canadian communities in the Fraser Valley volunteered to move to the prairie provinces in order to keep families intact, along with the promise of housing, relative freedom of movement, and placement on farms in close proximity to one another. Ignoring the rules forbidding the formation of organizations, Japanese Canadians were able to retain their existing Nokai which proved instrumental in providing social support for these alienated communities.

Éléments caractéristiques

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