On March 24, 2017, the Vancouver Maritime Museum will be hosting The Lost Fleet, an exhibition on the internment of Japanese-Canadian people and the seizure of their property in British Columbia. After Pearl Harbour, Canadian officials seized over 1,200 Japanese-Canadian fishing boats on the British Columbian coast and resold them to non-Japanese people. The Canadian Pacific Railway fired all their Japanese employees. According to CBC, the slogan at the time went as follows: “No Japs from the Rockies to the seas.”
The exhibition will include photographs of the period as well as models of the Japanese-Canadian fishing boats that were seized during the time that have since been destroyed. These models were created by the late model ship-builder, Doug Allen. According to Duncan MacLeod, Maritime Museum Curator, “The process of deciding on an exhibition took place during the rising crisis in Syria, and the contemporary discussions of an influx of non-white immigrants bore a strong resemblance to the rhetoric used when speaking about the Japanese and other Asian immigrants in the 20th century prior to WWII.”
The exhibition will examine Vancouver’s racist roots and history in hopes of inspiring a conversation regarding the current immigration crisis. According to the Vancouver Maritime Museum’s website, museum-goers are encouraged to ask themselves the following questions: What lessons have we learned? Is the present political and economic climate any different today? Could this sort of injustice be carried out again today?
The Vancouver Maritime Museum is located on Kits Point, at 1905 Ogden Avenue in Vanier Park. The museum is open 10am-5pm Tuesdays through Saturdays, Sundays 12pm-5pm, and on Thursdays 10am-8pm.