Announcing ensoku 2024: Tashme Obon
Our third ensoku (“field trip”) event has officially launched!
Registration is now closed.
With support from the Sunshine Valley Tashme Museum, Kikiai Collaborative is excited to announce ensoku 2024, an intergenerational gathering in Sunshine Valley, BC aimed at bringing 200 Japanese Canadians to the former Tashme internment site. This inaugural event will facilitate community, culture and history through Obon customs, performance and learning.
Coinciding with Tashme’s closure on Aug. 12, 1946, ensoku 2024 takes place on Saturday, Aug. 17. For visitors staying overnight, the Sunshine Valley Tashme Museum will be open on Sunday.
This will be the area’s largest gathering and first Obon ceremony since the Second World War.
Typically celebrated in mid-August, Obon is a Buddhist tradition that allows people to pay respects to their ancestors and loved ones who have died. Through Obon, it’s believed that spirits are able to return to their families.
By including Obon customs, we honour those who were incarcerated in Tashme and other internment sites. Our ceremony will be led by the Steveston Buddhist Temple followed by bon odori dancing led by temple volunteers, and welcome for all to join.
For questions, email kikiaicollaborative [at] gmail [dot] com.
“It is incredibly meaningful to me to be a part of this event and celebrate my family, their resilience, and the life that my great uncle never got to live.”
Rob Takashi Duffy
Organizer
Why bring ensoku to Tashme?
In 1942, Tashme was established as one of eight internment camps by the Canadian government to incarcerate Japanese Canadians during the Second World War. Located 14 miles southeast of Hope, Tashme covered 1,200 acres of land and, at its peak, was home to 2,644 people.
Since closing in 1946, the area has remained largely inaccessible to visitors due to private land ownership. Like many internment sites in BC, Tashme was also unmarked until 2018 and difficult to access due to its isolation.
However, in 2016, Ryan Ellan founded the Sunshine Valley Tashme Museum and has since brought over 5,000 people per year to the site through educational tours and public hours. While this has created access to the historical site, many remnants of Tashme remain under private ownership, limiting landmarks to property owned by the museum.
Learn more about Tashme’s history at tashme.ca.
Why us?
Since 2014, Kikiai Collaborative has connected young-ish folks in Greater Vancouver through the history, politics, arts and culture of the Japanese Canadian community and in 2019, we organized our first large-scale event: the first ensoku, or “field trip.”
ensoku 2019 brought more than 40 mostly under-40 folks of Japanese descent from across Canada and the United States to Vancouver for a gathering that bound participants through food, art and conversation.
At the end of this multi-day event, a few participants hopped into an old family van and visited Tashme on a whim. This reignited our dream of facilitating a visit to some of the former internment sites for an event tailored to a younger demographic that was also financially accessible.
So, in 2023 this dream became a reality and we brought over 40 under-40 Japanese Canadians to the Tashme internment site through our second ensoku event. This opened the door to the possibility of a larger community gathering in the area.
Previous ensoku events
In addition to informal gatherings throughout the year, Kikiai Collaborative is pleased to offer a series of ensoku events. Japanese for “field trip,” these events have brought people together through food, art, conversation and place since 2019. Read more about our past events below.
