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Japanese Canadian Monument Park

People uprooted from Fraser Mills (81) View on map

Fraser Mills (formerly Millside) was established in 1889 as the Ross McLaren sawmill company town. A small railway station was built in 1890, and replaced with the Canadian Pacific Railway Fraser Mills Station in 1910. Economic conditions forced the mill to close from 1893 to 1903. After the Canadian Western Lumber Company purchased the site in 1903, it reopened as the Fraser River Sawmills in 1906. During this change in ownership, workers were imported from Quebec to replace what was a predominantly Japanese, Chinese, and Indian workforce. By 1911, the majority of residents were French Canadian.

More than fifty Japanese Canadians worked at the mill in 1910, and by the 1930s there were still at least six Japanese Canadian families living in the company town. Japanese Canadians participated in the Fraser Mills lumber plant strike in 1931, and vegetable were donated by Japanese Canadian farmhands from Hammond.

This person will be included on the monument panels in a future addition.