Kohan Reflection Gardens in New Denver, BC
Designs Bring Light to Tragic History for Reflection and Awareness
Sep 3, 2008
A Reiki student built the Kohan Reflection Gardens, a WWII Japanese-Canadian Internment Memorial on the shores of Slocan Lake, in New Denver, south-central BC, western Canada, at her teacher's request to show what these people experienced in that community. It is now a landmark pilgrimage site for Japanese and Canadian travelers alike, as well as a masterpiece of formal Japanese garden design.
A Brief History of the Japanese-Canadian Internments
After the bombing of Pearl Harbour, in 1942, the homes, businesses and chattels of Japanese-Canadians in BC were expropriated by the Canadian government. A writ forbade them to live within a 100-mile strip next to the Pacific coastline. At first, they were held in converted cattle pens on the grounds of the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) grounds, at Hastings Park in Vancouver. Then they were dispersed.
Many women, children, the aged and infirm were shipped to the sparsely populated BC interior, as able-bodied husbands and older sons were sent to labour camps.
Conditions in these communities were primitive and, in winter, brutal. Canada had always prided itself upon being a just society which upheld the freedom of its citizens, but it was four years after the end of the war, in 1949, before Japanese-Canadians could return west. Nothing was left for them; everything they owned had been auctioned off in 1943.
In 1988, the government formally apologized and offered redress.
Kohan Gardens Designed for Reflection and Remembrance
In 1989, the student designed a formal Japanese garden---a metaphor for a painful, unjust period of history, which left its viewers fortified with the resolve not to repeat past injustices, and inspired peace, inner tranquility and poise with harmony, beauty and inspiration.
Tall hedges shroud the garden from public view, the only access through a traditional entrance pavilion in local cedar. The dark shelter with its open windows looking, both, toward the street and into the garden, provides an effective place to take a deep breath and release the day’s thoughts, emotions and physical tension. The green meditative space beyond beckons, like Canada beckoned to settlers from Japan.
Lawns lined with flowerbeds, shrubs and trees direct passage to a traditional Japanese teahouse, but one which is open and airy, without walls. The earliest experiences in this new place are rooted in cultural origins, directed toward tradition, but lightly expressed, with liberty and openness.
Suddenly, a wall looms up, both barricade and blind. The path veers around, but it is difficult to see what lies beyond the profusion of wild, local vegetation and dark evergreens. At the heart of circular path through dense towering hedges, is a small pool fed through a cedar spout. It evokes Slocan Lake surrounded by fortress-like mountains and almost impenetrable forests.
Three raised lily and bog-plant ponds in the garden's center are constructed as rectangular cement containers. Their cubic shape resembles the houses which defined the resettlement communities. The water reflects the sky, and miniature waterlilies, rooted in mud, bloom above the water-surface.
After this, a choice: back to the beginning like those who returned to Japan? Or take the path which opens onto the lake, and its expansive sky and water. Kohan Reflection Gardens hold many profound surprises and realizations for those willing to contemplate.
The Kohan Reflection Gardens are between 1st Avenue and Slocan Lake, just east of Centennial Park Campsite, about 3.5 blocks west of Highway 6 in the "The Orchard" section of New Denver, BC., south of Carpenter Creek. Open year-round, they are best viewed from May to October.
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