{"id":15821,"date":"2024-02-05T23:46:01","date_gmt":"2024-02-06T04:46:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/?p=15821"},"modified":"2024-02-05T23:46:01","modified_gmt":"2024-02-06T04:46:01","slug":"the-story-of-cumberland-and-royston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/the-story-of-cumberland-and-royston\/","title":{"rendered":"The Story of Cumberland and Royston"},"content":{"rendered":"
In 2024, the National Association of Japanese Canadians (NAJC) is looking at geographic locations where Japanese Canadians lived after migrating to Canada, since the 1800s, and where they were interned\/incarcerated in 1942.<\/p>\n
The Story of Cumberland and Royston
\nBy Lorene Oikawa, Past President NAJC<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In the sweep of the eastern shoreline of Vancouver Island from Kelsey Bay in the north and down to the south including Hornby and Denby Island, this is \u201cthe land of plenty.\u201d K\u2019\u1f79moks peoples have been the care takers of \u201cthe land of plenty\u201d since time immemorial. Local food sources came from the sea and land. The European settlers took the land and resources of the K\u2019\u1f79moks peoples and forced them south.<\/p>\n
Cumberland (formerly known as Union) is one of the settler towns in the Comox Valley, about a 1.5 hour drive from Nanaimo and about 10 minutes from Courtenay. For centuries, the K\u2019\u1f79moks peoples were the only humans in the area who knew the forests, and where to hunt for food from the land and sea. They did notice the shiny black deposits which would eventually attract European settlers, and then workers from China and Japan. The trees in the forests were cut down for log shelters and then houses. Coal mines are first developed in the 1860s and 1870s by the Union Colliery Company who eventually sell their rights to the Dunsmuir family.<\/p>\n
Miners fill their carts with coal and are paid less than 60 cents per ton. If there is more than 65 pounds of waste rock, then the miner is not paid. Japanese Canadian and Chinese Canadian miners were paid about half of the rate that white miners were paid. By 1897, Cumberland was producing 700 to 1000 tons of coal per day with about 600 workers in the general population of 3,000.<\/p>\n
Discrimination against Asian miners didn\u2019t stop when they died. They weren\u2019t allowed to be buried in the city cemetery with the other miners. There were separate cemeteries for Japanese Canadians and Chinese Canadians.<\/p>\n
Asian Canadians were also working in Union Bay. Japanese Canadian workers stoked the coke ovens and shoveled out the coal dust from coke ovens. Indo Canadian workers were building the docks and Chinese Canadian workers were working as trimmers on the coal ships.<\/p>\n
Mining is dangerous work and particularly on Vancouver Island. The conditions were harsh. Workers would have to work bent over in narrow coal seams for 8 to 10 hours. Vancouver Island mines were known to have a lot of toxic methane gas. Miners wore soft peaked caps with \u201ctea kettles, \u201ctiny oil lamps clipped to their caps. The flames could ignite methane gas in the mines and there was always a risk because of matches and the accumulation of coal dust in the air. Some experienced miners from England were shocked to find the continued use of \u201copen flame\u201d lamps. One statistic from that time is that of 1,000 mining accident deaths on Vancouver Island, 295 died in Cumberland.<\/p>\n
Mining is dangerous work and particularly on Vancouver Island. The conditions were harsh. Workers would have to work bent over in narrow coal seams for 8 to 10 hours. Vancouver Island mines were known to have a lot of toxic methane gas. Miners wore soft peaked caps with \u201ctea kettles, \u201ctiny oil lamps clipped to their caps. The flames could ignite methane gas in the mines and there was always a risk because of matches and the accumulation of coal dust in the air. Some experienced miners from England were shocked to find the continued use of \u201copen flame\u201d lamps. One statistic from that time is that of 1,000 mining accident deaths on Vancouver Island, 295 died in Cumberland.<\/p>\n
The 1912-1914 Big Strike on Vancouver Island was started because of the unsafe working conditions. The miners fought back against the violent union-busting of coal baron James Dunsmuir. \u00a0In 1918, one vocal union leader Albert \u201cGinger\u201d Goodwin was targeted and murdered. His funeral procession stretched over a mile long with a couple of thousand people participating and ignited a one-day general strike in Vancouver.<\/p>\n
Japanese Canadian settlers first settled on leased land near the mines in Cumberland where they worked. Land near No. 1 mine was referred to as No. 1 Town and the area near No. 5 mine was referred to as No. 5 Town. This reflects the race-based segregation that took place.<\/p>\n
No. 1 Town and No. 5 Town comprise the largest Japanese Canadian community on Vancouver Island. There were about 600 Japanese Canadians.<\/p>\n
In No. 1 Town, there were about 36 houses for families. There were also community vegetable gardens, two general stores, a town hall, a language school, and a bath house. To the east was a coal tailings pile known as Taka Yama. It formed a backstop for a baseball diamond in the open space. Baseball was (and continues to be) a popular sport for Japanese Canadians.<\/p>\n
George Doi who was a boy in Royston (about 2 miles east of Cumberland) said that everyone liked baseball and he remembered families heading to Cumberland with a basket of food to watch the games. The baseball team for No. 5 Town was called \u201cSun\u201d and the baseball team for No. 1 Town was called \u201cNippon.\u201d His father, my grandfather, Kenichi Doi was born in Cumberland, lived near No. 5 Town, and played for the Sun team.<\/p>\n