Fire started by illegal sake still at the camp

Building Japanese style fishing boats in Canada Japanese fishermen town in Steveston, Canada Grandmother convinced his mother to return to Canada No immediate impact after Pearl Harbor Treatment of Japanese fishermen in Canada during World War II Government's permission to publish Japanese newspaper in Canada during World War II Japanese newspaper supported by Canadian government during World War II Sneaking out of the Hastings Park camp during World War II Fire started by illegal sake still at the camp Building a Japanese rock garden inside an internment camp Government urged Japanese Canadians to go to Japan Japanese Canadians get the right to vote in 1949 Government sold Japanese Canadian properties for little money Developing senior housing for Japanese Canadians

Transcripts available in the following languages:

If you look at some of the paintings where I have Main Street, you'll see sitting up there were two red buckets that were filled with sand. It was, and that, those were supposed to be used for, in case of fire. And then we had a bucket parade. Of course, it was useless, a bucket parade to the, to the lake, and you'd carry the water to douse the flames. Well, it turned out it was almost useless. They could prevent other houses from getting burned, but that house that was burning just went up. In fact, it didn't even start from a candle. The guy had dug a hole underneath and made a, had made an illegal still to make rice wine, to make sake. And in the business of making the rice wine, some, something went wrong and the thing blew up or something, and it caught the place on fire. And of course, the whole thing went down in flames, and his main worry was that the RCMP would not find the illegal still was underneath the house. He had gone to a big trouble making this illegal still. But that was the only fire that we really knew of, that I remember that occurred.

Date: July 25 & 26, 2006
Location: Washington, US
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Contributed by: Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.

hastings park