Little Temple on the Prairie Book Launch & Pitt Meadows Plaque Unveiling
The uprooting and displacement of Japanese Canadians who owned farms or lived in areas north of the Fraser River in BC caused communities to form in Alberta and Manitoba, with many sent to work on prairie sugar beet farms.
Japanese Buddhist churches were created in the prairies as communities tried to rebuild. Some of the Japanese Canadians now living in Manitoba are from Haney or Pitt Meadows, and it’s coincidental that an event honouring the Manitoba Buddhist Church took place within days of an event recognizing the survivors and descendants of Pitt Meadows.
We thank Manitoba Buddhist Temple President Harvey Kaita for his work setting up the event in Winnipeg and for supplying the event in Pitt Meadows with such powerful memories.
Little Temple on the Prairie Book Launch
On November 15, the Manitoba Buddhist Temple held a book launch for Little Temple on the Prairie. The book, written by Megan Kiyoko Wray and illustrated by Brynne Takeuchi Monterrosa, and funded by a Community Projects grant, documents the wartime arrival in Manitoba of over 1,000 people uprooted from the West Coast to work on sugar beet farms in places like Steinbach, Portage la Prairie, Morris, Dugald, Elm Creek, Altona, and Gretna.
Listen to Megan Wray interviewed on CBC Radio | Read a feature in the Winnipeg Free Press
Despite the extreme hardships suffered by the displaced families—including terrible living and working conditions, extremely low pay, and pervasive racism—many chose to remain in Manitoba after the war. Unable to return to the coast until 1949, a large number settled permanently in the province, with many relocating to Winnipeg to find work. Despite promises to hold their homes, farms, fishing boats, and businesses, everything had been sold off by the government, leaving them nothing to return to even after restrictions were lifted.
The roots of the Manitoba Buddhist Temple date back to 1946, when uprooted Buddhists began to organize for moral, spiritual, and cultural support. In 1951, the shrine from the Maple Ridge Buddhist Church in Haney, BC – which served one of the largest pre-war Japanese Canadian concentrations – was brought to Winnipeg. It had been disassembled for preservation and stored in Coquitlam by the BC Security Commission during the war. By 1952, the temple was operating with a language school, a Dharma School, and regular services. Hideo Nishimura, who had been uprooted from Ocean falls before becoming a former farm worker in Emerson, Manitoba, became the lay minister and later, after study in Japan, a full minister (Sensei).
The temple’s bell also carries deep history. Donated in 1936 to the Ocean Falls Buddhist Church by members including Hideo Nishimura, it was transported to Winnipeg in 1951. It continues to ring prior to every service today.
The book launch gala attracted a large crowd of survivors and descendants to celebrate this document of endurance, with remarks provided by JCLS CEO Susanne Tabata and Temple President Harvey Kaita (see box below).
Pitt Meadows Memories
There is a photo in the Pitt Meadows Museum website’s gallery showing Japanese Canadians gathered in front of the Japanese Meeting Hall on Advent Road, taken on February 11, 1940. Several members of the Kaita family—including my grandparents, Takaji and Sue, and my father, Enpay—are in that photo.
Before the war, Takaji owned a nursery on two parcels of land in Pitt Meadows, a 17-acre and a 10-acre property that are now part of the Pitt Meadows Regional Airport. He and his wife, Sue, raised three sons and four daughters on their farm. Life was busy and demanding, but they were happy. That changed with the forced evacuation of Japanese Canadians from the West Coast during the Second World War.
The Kaita family was loaded onto trains in British Columbia and eventually arrived at the CP Rail Station in Winnipeg, attached to the Winnipeg Immigration Hall. It was there, on June 3, 1942, that Burnell farmers met my family and took them to their sugar beet farm in Oakville, Manitoba.
Those first years in Manitoba were extremely difficult for my father and grandparents. They worked tirelessly to rebuild their lives—first as hired hands on sugar beet farms, then saving enough to rent a small parcel of land where they grew vegetables for local restaurants. Eventually, they were able to purchase their own land, which they farmed for the next 40 years.
Alongside vegetables, they also cultivated gladiolus bulbs that Takaji had brought with him from Pitt Meadows. When my father noticed how much florists were charging for the flowers compared to what they received, he decided to pursue floral design. In 1960, he attended floral design school in Chicago and returned to open Roy’s Florist—named after the English name given to him upon arriving in Manitoba—which he operated for more than 30 years.
The Kaita family remained in Winnipeg, where it has since grown to include fifth-generation members. Many have gone on to successful careers in healthcare, engineering, and law—achievements made possible by the sacrifices, determination, and hard work of Enpay and Takaji.
My father’s voice can be heard today in the oral history section on the Pitt Meadows Museum website. Listening to him speak about his childhood in Pitt Meadows—despite the hardship of forced displacement—his memories are warm and positive.
I am honoured to share this part of our family’s history at the unveiling of the monument honouring the Japanese Canadians who lived in Pitt Meadows, many of whom now make their home in Manitoba.
– Harvey Kaita, President, Manitoba Buddhist Temple
Pitt Meadows Plaque Unveiling
On Sunday, November 23, a commemorative plaque highlighting the pre-war contributions of Japanese Canadians was unveiled in Pitt Meadows, BC. Seventy-five survivors and descendants attended, returning to the land where Japanese Canadians once comprised 20% of the local population. Approximately 40 Japanese families had worked this land, developing successful strawberry and vegetable farms at a time when most other businesses refused to hire Japanese workers.
The Pitt Meadows Japanese Farmers’ Association, organized in the 1920s, provided vital agricultural support until 1942, when all Japanese Canadian organizations were ordered to cease operations. Subsequently, 238 Japanese Canadians from Pitt Meadows were forcibly removed and their properties sold with little compensation. Because none of the families were able to return to Pitt Meadows to live, the unveiling of this plaque is a poignant milestone in recognizing this erased history.
JC Legacies CEO Susanne Tabata shared the words of Harvey Kaita, president of the Manitoba Buddhist Temple, whose father and grandparents appear in the 1940 group photo featured on the plaque. Many families from Pitt Meadows and the surrounding Fraser Valley were sent, like the Kaitas, to the sugar beet fields of Manitoba, settling there permanently after the war and making new lives. The vibrant community that exists today in the Prairies speaks to the resilience of those who were dispossessed and exiled, yet managed to plant new roots in the face of injustice.
This plaque, like the work being done at other heritage sites around BC, are reminders of the deep roots that Japanese Canadians planted in the province prior to 1942 and the contributions they made then, and continue to make today.
