The East Lillooet Internment Site was one of 10 Internment camps and 7 official self-supporting sites Japanese Canadians were forcibly relocated to in 1942 after the outbreak of World War II. The self-supporting camp was situated on 40 acres of land on the banks of the Fraser River. As with other internment sites, the BC Security Commission (BCSC) leased the land from local landowners. In this case, the Palmer family entered into an agreement allowing their land to ultimately become the location for 309 persons of Japanese descent to be held during the war years.
The first internees arrived in East Lillooet in 1942. Most were from the communities of Haney, Hammond, and Vancouver in the Lower Mainland. It was the responsibility of the early arrivals to construct 62 standard tarpaper shacks, a series of flumes to carry water from the Fraser River, and a fence around the perimeter of the camp. The camp was organized into two sections, with internees from Vancouver to the south, and the farmers from Haney and Hammond to the north.
Conditions in the camp were often harsh and barely tolerable. As in other camps around the province, the tarpaper shacks where the internees were forced to live had no insulation, electricity, or indoor plumbing. In East Lillooet, firewood for heating was often scarce, and in the winter of 1942, temperatures dropped to record lows. Icicles formed inside the shacks, and snow and icy winds came through the cracks and gaps in the green wood that had been used to build them.
Internees experienced a sense of hopelessness and discrimination due to the isolation and physical conditions of the East Lillooet camp. They were not allowed to cross the bridge into the town of Lillooet without a permit from the RCMP, which limited their ability to do even simple activities like shopping and banking. As a result, internees sought to create a sense of community within the camp itself and a community group called the “Lillooet Japanese Self Supporting Community” was formed. They built a school and community garden and worked to look after the general welfare of the camp’s population.
Due to the forced relocation and dispossession, a key issue was how to support and feed their often large families without a job or income. In self-supporting camps, internees paid for their own internment on their own dime. While Internees brought their savings with them, this was insufficient. In the early years, even fishing in the Fraser River was legally prohibited.
Among the large contingent of farmers from Haney and Hammond was Tokutaro Tsuyuki. Tsuyuki had been an extremely successful farmer and large-scale greenhouse producer in Haney prior to the war, owning one of the largest greenhouse operations of tomatoes and cucumbers in Maple Ridge.
Under Tsuyuki’s expertise, leadership and motivation, Tsuyuki and his fellow farmers recognized the hot dry climate of East Lillooet was well-suited for tomato production. Making arrangements with local landowners, the men in the camp introduced tomato farming to East Lillooet. As many fishing families also lived in the camp, Mr. Tsuyuki taught them how to farm. Given the discriminatory climate of the time where no Japanese Canadian could cross the bridge into the ‘white’ town, this kind of organizing to secure land was no small feat by any Japanese Canadian.
Tsuyuki led the organizing of the business and production end of tomato production amongst the camp residents. He set up the steps involved in the tomato growing process to produce large scale and high yield crops intended to stretch the growing season for as long as possible. It was a sophisticated and laborious process implemented very quickly in the neighbouring farms/ranches. At first, tomato harvests were picked, packed in wooden boxes/crates, loaded onto a truck, and then loaded onto boxcars at the PGE Lillooet Train Station. At first, these boxes and boxes of sweet Lillooet tomatoes were shipped to a cannery in the “Royal City” in New Westminster or sold as fresh produce in Vancouver.
The success of the venture led to the camp resident farmers deciding to build an added-value tomato cannery to can the tomatoes in metal cans before shipping to Vancouver. The ownership structure is unclear in regards to the cannery, however, according to Dr. Akira Horii, “Japanese Canadian issei farmers had shares in the cannery.” Soon after this, a fruit packing plant was constructed just west of the cannery (adjacent to the train station).
Tomato production, both for sale fresh and canned to the city, became the main industry of the camp. Many adults and most older children worked in some form to contribute to their family income in the new ‘industry’. Teenagers in the camp worked after school and most children also worked in the fields during the summer holidays. Workers were paid in cash.
While most of the internment camps throughout the province closed in 1945-46, East Lillooet remained intact until 1949 (until the end of the Internment), receiving internees from other camps who needed a home while awaiting permanent places to live.
In 1949, the Internment officially ended, with the suspension of civil rights for Japanese Canadians lifted, and freedom of movement once again granted together with the right to vote. Families, if they had enough money, began moving out of Lillooet gradually, either back to Vancouver or to where there was more opportunity. This of course meant that the heyday of tomato farming and the cannery was to decline with Japanese Canadians leaving the Internment camp, which was burned down in the early 1950s. The cannery burned to the ground in 1962.
