People uprooted from Tofino (66)

Tofino is located on the traditional territory of the Tla-o-qui-aht (Clayoquot) First Nation of the Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka) Peoples at the tip of the Esowista Peninsula. It was established by non-Indigenous settlers in the 1890s. A store was built on the present townsite in 1901, followed by a one-room schoolhouse (1906), and a post office (1909). In the 1920s, Japanese families started building homes in Storm Bay, calling the area Nishikage. Most Japanese Canadians in Tofino were from the Wakayama Prefecture in Japan and lived in four main settlements: Eik Landing, Nishi Kazi (West Wing), Storm Bay, and Grice Point (Duffin Cove).

In 1934, seventeen students were enrolled in the Japanese Language School. Japanese Canadian fishers developed new tools and adapted small gillnet boats for year-round salmon trolling. After restrictions on Fraser River fishing licenses in 1917, many Japanese Canadians relocated to Tofino, and by the 1920s, they had formed the Tofino Trollers Cooperative Association. At the time of forcible uprooting, more than one-third of Tofino’s residents were Japanese Canadian.