People uprooted from Jedway (2)

Jedway, on the east coast of Moresby Island in Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands), was established by settlers during the copper rush around 1905. By 1907 Jedway had a wharf, cabins, a post office, store and sawmill that employed Japanese Canadian labourers. Many residents worked for the Copper Queen Mine, while Japanese entrepreneur Arichika Ikeda founded the nearby Ikeda Mines (1906) in what became Ikeda Bay (Ikeda Cove).

The Ikeda Mines employed up to 150 mostly Japanese workers; the site was known locally as Little Japan which featured bunkhouses, residences, a wharf, industrial facilities, and a cemetery. In 1909, mine closures and a sawmill fire left Jedway nearly deserted, though the Ikeda Mines would reopen and stay populated until the 1920s. In the 1910s, Japanese Canadian-owned fisheries, canneries, and salteries, including the Jedway Bay saltery, emerged. Many Japanese Canadian workers would float between jobs, often finding mining work in the off-season.

The Jedway Bay saltery became one of BC’s largest by the 1930s but was denied licenses and land leases in 1938; by 1941 production had ceased although they still employed a watchman in the plant. When the salteries closed, Jedway was abandoned again.