r the removal of all Japanese Canadians residing within 100 miles of the Pacific Coast. From March to October, about 22,000 Japanese were forced to abandon their homes and relocate under federal supervision. The British Columbia Security Commission, a federal agency created to carry out the evacuation, executed its tasks methodically and systematically. As a first step it used the Hastings Park Exhibition Ground in Vancouver for use as a shelter and clearing house for the Japanese evacuees. The centers first residents were Japanese from Vancouver Island and outlying coastal districts. They were herded into a building usually used for housing livestock for the annual Pacific National Exhibition. The Japanese had no choice but to sleep in straw-filled mattresses and breath in the stench of cows, horses, tobacco and manure. Fortunately, they did not have to stay too long. Unfortunately, the next step for the Japanese was not a pleasant one either.The Japanese evacuees were next shipped to relatively isolated areas. The first to go were about 2200 men who were placed in several interior road camps. A further 4000 were sent to work on sugar beet farms in southern Alberta and Manitoba. Some 12000 were dispatched to housing projects in the interior of the province, either to one of the several renovated ghost towns in the Kootenay Lake and Slocan Valley districts or to a newly constructed camp at Tashme, east of Hope.The Commission made maximum Japanese self-sufficiency a goal. As a result most of the evacuees were sent to isolated areas to work in a make-work program. Upon arrival, the Japanese men were greeted with freight cars that waited as their new home. At these camps, life was tough and lonesome. Everyday was like clockwork and loneliness plagued many of the men. On top of that, the men were paid extremely little. What little amount they made was deducted for food, housing, workmens compensation and support for their fami...
