People uprooted from Bradner (23)

Bradner, a community in Abbotsford, was established by non-Indigenous settlers around 1895. By 1910, it was a station on the BC Electric Railway Interurban line, and its post office opened in 1912. The community’s economy centred on agriculture, particularly floral crops. In 1914, a horticulturalist named Fenwick Fatkin sought to create second Holland by establshing what would become a very successful daffodil business.

In the 1920s, four Japanese Canadian families, the Imamuras, Mikis, Yamadas, and Yamamotos, began growing daffodils. By the 1940s, the four families combined owned nearly two hundred acres of property in the area. Many Japanese Canadian growers joined the Bradner Bulb Growers’ Association, which imported and exported bulbs, and developed relationships with white farmers that were at times collegial although often strained. By 1942, at least nine Japanese Canadian families lived in Bradner.