7 ms·

Japanese Settlement Found in Forests of British Columbia

182 points by curtis 7y ago

staz 7y ago
*settlement from the 20th century
- yitchelle 7y ago
  That is a good context to have. When I saw the title, I thought they discovered signs of Japanese settlement, similar to the Vikings settlements on the opposite side of the continent.
  - agumonkey 7y ago
    Same. Time saved I guess
    - jacobush 7y ago
      Still interesting story!
  - afiler 7y ago
    That was a separate news story from a couple weeks ago. "Late Upper Paleolithic occupation at Cooper’s Ferry, Idaho, USA, ~16,000 years ago" "The stemmed projectile points closely resemble those found in Upper Paleolithic Japan, also supporting the hypothesis of a coastal route." https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6456/891 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6456/891
petercooper 7y ago
I'm a bit naive as to how large countries like Canada monitor their space, but is it possible there are unknown long-term (multi generational) "settlements" separate and unknown to the rest of the world still out in the middle of nowhere in Canada? Feels like a good subject for a novel :-)
- grecy 7y ago
  I live in the Yukon, and have done plenty of 10 day canoe trips while out moose hunting. Not only do you not see a single person, you don't see evidence of humans. No roads, no power lines, no fire rings. Absolutely nothing, and we're relatively close to civilization (i.e. we put in off a road and take out off a road.) Start hiking and you could easily go thousands of kms without evidence of people. (except the hiking would be almost impossible)
- jacquesm 7y ago
  I've driven and hiked around the Canadian bush quite a bit. It is hard to explain how incredibly large the area is in terms that makes sense if you haven't been there. It isn't uncommon to spend days without seeing another person. It's so quiet the only sounds you hear are the wind (if there is wind), animals and your own heartbeat. It's also beautiful and brutal at the same time, a single mistake and you're done for so make sure that you know everything there is to know about first aid and keep your gear in very good order. If you bring a vehicle also bring plenty of fuel and tools (and it helps if you know how to use them). In the words of an 18th century map maker, the North of Canada (Quebec, Ontario) is 'immense forests', in the West you have the Canadian portion of the Rocky Mountains and then there are the territories. You can spend a lifetime there and never see the same thing twice.
  - arethuza 7y ago
    I remember having a flight from LHR to Calgary and was lucky enough to be in a window seat and for it to be daylight and clear - only time I've seen Greenland! What I was prepared for was how big, flat and pretty much featureless that part of Canada is just his awesome patchwork of lakes, streams and the occasional esker. Only thing that has been similar was flying north from Kenya to Egypt and being similarly amazed at how vast the Sahara is.
    - tom_mellior 7y ago
      > esker TIL, thanks! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esker
Vizarddesky 7y ago
I live on this mountain. These are not settlements. These are logging camps or seasonal work camps. My grandfather worked up there and he was jealous of the Japanese for their beautiful shacks when the Norwegians were in canvas tents. Of course, he admitted that the Japanese just worked harder to make their own quarters. There were orchards, livestock, farms of potatoes, onions and legumes, but most of the activity was in hauling out doug fir to tidewater with oxen or steam donkeys or building miles-long flumes to shoot WRC shinglebolts down to the river or Burrard Inlet.
- navane 7y ago
  doug fir: a tall, slender conifer with soft foliage and, in mature trees, deeply fissured bark. It is widely planted as a timber tree. tidewater: an area that is affected by tides, especially eastern Virginia. flume: a human-made channel for water in the form of an open declined gravity chute whose walls are raised above the surrounding terrain, in contrast to a trench or ditch WRC shinglebolts: [Hand-sized chunks of wood] relatively small cubes of Western Redcedar which are later processed into redcedar roof shingles.
  - Luc 7y ago
    Steam donkeys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_donkey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_donkey
- jacobush 7y ago
  Is it not possible some maintained a year round presence there, especially given apparently Japanese were not well seen in other parts of Canada?
- metaphor 7y ago
  The article noted the following: > But it is the third site, which seems to have transitioned from a logging camp to a thriving village, that fascinates [the archaeology professor] the most. Must be a real privilege for your grandfather to share that bit of vivid history with you. My grandfather would have been a young adult during WW2, and the small island that both he and I grew up on has a deep history with the Japanese which had a direct impact on its indigenous population; he supposedly spoke fluent Japanese as a consequence, along with Korean (by birth), the indigenous language (married a local), and eventually English (after American occupation). Unfortunately, he was unable to speak coherently by the time I was in my late teens and old enough to be interested, so the only history lessons I've gotten of the time were second hand, passed down from the stories he told my father.
dwighttk 7y ago
Early 20th century settlement found 14 years ago and excavated for the past 14 yrs.
bobloblaw45 7y ago
They have these all over the western US as well. Mostly Chinese though I think. Back from mining, logging, and rail building times. Many are for the most part undocumented or barely documented with short footnotes in texts from the time. I was thinking how cool it would be to bring a metal detector to one of the spots since they've been for the most part untouched.
yellowapple 7y ago
I had no idea that Canada had a Japanese relocation/internment program during WWII. I only knew of the one here in the US.
- drderidder 7y ago
  It became much more common knowledge after the Canadian government issued an official apology [1]. I recall seeing a documentary about it[2]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Canadians#Redress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Canadia... 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8TQTuMqM9g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8TQTuMqM9g
mkipfer 7y ago
The Ainu people of Hokkaido,Japan are no different than the indigenous peoples of the Aleutian islands of Alaska. I do not think it's a stretch that the supposed icebridge over there Bering sea would have given a direct route to British Columbia. I think it is common knowledge that life originated in Africa and dispersed from there. Thoughtfully, people of the ancient world would have been in the Northern reaches of Japan before they would have ventured to North America. If there was a link to Japan I would see it as almost natural that it would connect the cold regions of British Columbia and Hokkaido.

182 points by curtis 7y ago

staz 7y ago

*settlement from the 20th century

yitchelle 7y ago
That is a good context to have. When I saw the title, I thought they discovered signs of Japanese settlement, similar to the Vikings settlements on the opposite side of the continent.
- agumonkey 7y ago
  Same. Time saved I guess
  - jacobush 7y ago
    Still interesting story!
- afiler 7y ago
  That was a separate news story from a couple weeks ago. "Late Upper Paleolithic occupation at Cooper’s Ferry, Idaho, USA, ~16,000 years ago" "The stemmed projectile points closely resemble those found in Upper Paleolithic Japan, also supporting the hypothesis of a coastal route." https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6456/891 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6456/891

petercooper 7y ago

I'm a bit naive as to how large countries like Canada monitor their space, but is it possible there are unknown long-term (multi generational) "settlements" separate and unknown to the rest of the world still out in the middle of nowhere in Canada? Feels like a good subject for a novel :-)

grecy 7y ago
I live in the Yukon, and have done plenty of 10 day canoe trips while out moose hunting. Not only do you not see a single person, you don't see evidence of humans. No roads, no power lines, no fire rings. Absolutely nothing, and we're relatively close to civilization (i.e. we put in off a road and take out off a road.) Start hiking and you could easily go thousands of kms without evidence of people. (except the hiking would be almost impossible)
jacquesm 7y ago
I've driven and hiked around the Canadian bush quite a bit. It is hard to explain how incredibly large the area is in terms that makes sense if you haven't been there. It isn't uncommon to spend days without seeing another person. It's so quiet the only sounds you hear are the wind (if there is wind), animals and your own heartbeat. It's also beautiful and brutal at the same time, a single mistake and you're done for so make sure that you know everything there is to know about first aid and keep your gear in very good order. If you bring a vehicle also bring plenty of fuel and tools (and it helps if you know how to use them). In the words of an 18th century map maker, the North of Canada (Quebec, Ontario) is 'immense forests', in the West you have the Canadian portion of the Rocky Mountains and then there are the territories. You can spend a lifetime there and never see the same thing twice.
- arethuza 7y ago
  I remember having a flight from LHR to Calgary and was lucky enough to be in a window seat and for it to be daylight and clear - only time I've seen Greenland! What I was prepared for was how big, flat and pretty much featureless that part of Canada is just his awesome patchwork of lakes, streams and the occasional esker. Only thing that has been similar was flying north from Kenya to Egypt and being similarly amazed at how vast the Sahara is.
  - tom_mellior 7y ago
    > esker TIL, thanks! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esker

Vizarddesky 7y ago

I live on this mountain. These are not settlements. These are logging camps or seasonal work camps. My grandfather worked up there and he was jealous of the Japanese for their beautiful shacks when the Norwegians were in canvas tents. Of course, he admitted that the Japanese just worked harder to make their own quarters. There were orchards, livestock, farms of potatoes, onions and legumes, but most of the activity was in hauling out doug fir to tidewater with oxen or steam donkeys or building miles-long flumes to shoot WRC shinglebolts down to the river or Burrard Inlet.

navane 7y ago
doug fir: a tall, slender conifer with soft foliage and, in mature trees, deeply fissured bark. It is widely planted as a timber tree. tidewater: an area that is affected by tides, especially eastern Virginia. flume: a human-made channel for water in the form of an open declined gravity chute whose walls are raised above the surrounding terrain, in contrast to a trench or ditch WRC shinglebolts: [Hand-sized chunks of wood] relatively small cubes of Western Redcedar which are later processed into redcedar roof shingles.
- Luc 7y ago
  Steam donkeys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_donkey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_donkey
jacobush 7y ago
Is it not possible some maintained a year round presence there, especially given apparently Japanese were not well seen in other parts of Canada?
metaphor 7y ago
The article noted the following: > But it is the third site, which seems to have transitioned from a logging camp to a thriving village, that fascinates [the archaeology professor] the most. Must be a real privilege for your grandfather to share that bit of vivid history with you. My grandfather would have been a young adult during WW2, and the small island that both he and I grew up on has a deep history with the Japanese which had a direct impact on its indigenous population; he supposedly spoke fluent Japanese as a consequence, along with Korean (by birth), the indigenous language (married a local), and eventually English (after American occupation). Unfortunately, he was unable to speak coherently by the time I was in my late teens and old enough to be interested, so the only history lessons I've gotten of the time were second hand, passed down from the stories he told my father.

dwighttk 7y ago

Early 20th century settlement found 14 years ago and excavated for the past 14 yrs.

bobloblaw45 7y ago

They have these all over the western US as well. Mostly Chinese though I think. Back from mining, logging, and rail building times. Many are for the most part undocumented or barely documented with short footnotes in texts from the time. I was thinking how cool it would be to bring a metal detector to one of the spots since they've been for the most part untouched.

yellowapple 7y ago

I had no idea that Canada had a Japanese relocation/internment program during WWII. I only knew of the one here in the US.

drderidder 7y ago
It became much more common knowledge after the Canadian government issued an official apology [1]. I recall seeing a documentary about it[2]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Canadians#Redress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Canadia... 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8TQTuMqM9g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8TQTuMqM9g

mkipfer 7y ago

The Ainu people of Hokkaido,Japan are no different than the indigenous peoples of the Aleutian islands of Alaska. I do not think it's a stretch that the supposed icebridge over there Bering sea would have given a direct route to British Columbia. I think it is common knowledge that life originated in Africa and dispersed from there. Thoughtfully, people of the ancient world would have been in the Northern reaches of Japan before they would have ventured to North America. If there was a link to Japan I would see it as almost natural that it would connect the cold regions of British Columbia and Hokkaido.