People uprooted from Esquimalt (2)

Esquimalt was established when James Douglas negotiated land treaties with the local Coast Salish Peoples, and the land was divided into major farms in 1848. By the mid-1850s, a small community had developed with the establishment of the Viewfield farm, a Hudson’s Bay Company warehouse, and the Royal Navy Pacific Fleet base in Esquimalt Harbour. Esquimalt is also the E in the E&N (Esquimalt and Nanaimo) Railway; construction of the railway started in 1884, and contributed greatly to the development of southern Vancouver Island.

In June 1880, a Japanese Imperial Navy ship, the Tsukuba, travelled from Yokohama and anchored in Esquimalt—one of the first Japanese ships to dock in BC. It carried 338 men and boys as well as three English instructors and docked for three weeks.

In 1907, Yoshijiro Kishida and Hayato Takata opened North America’s oldest Japanese Teahouse and Garden in Gorge Park, where the Takata family ran a popular summer tea house. The gardens were designed and landscaped by Isaburo Kishida. Nearby, two families shared a single-storey house and a Japanese handyman lived in a cabin. Zenkichi Nishimoto operated a yakata (Japanese pleasure boat) called the sampan, that took trips to Portage Inlet. In 1925, a fire destroyed the park’s bandstand, booths, and trees. By 1942, the Takatas were the only Japanese Canadian family remaining in Esquimalt.