People uprooted from Pitt Meadows (234)

Pitt Meadows (formerly Bonson’s Landing) was was originally inhabited by q̓ic̓əy̓ (Katzie) First Nation communities, and in the 1870s, non-Indigenous settlers established the area as an agricultural settlement. The Canadian Pacific Railway reached the community in 1885, linking it to Port Moody, and later Vancouver. Pitt Meadows was united with Maple Ridge from 1874 to 1896 and incorporated as a separate municipality in 1914. Dairy and berry farming were the area’s primary industries. In 1937, the community started the annual Sports Day and Strawberry Carnival, now known as Pitt Meadows Day.

Mankichi Eyemoto, the earliest known Japanese Canadian settler in Pitt Meadows, arrived in 1904. Other families, including the Fujimotos, settled there by 1912. By the 1930s and 1940s, Japanese Canadians made up roughly one-fifth of the population, with about forty families living in the community. Most farmed vegetables and berries, with a focus on strawberries. Japanese Canadian children were quite involved in the community and attended the local school. By 1941, Pitt Meadows had a population of 1,119, including 238 Japanese Canadians.

The Japanese Canadian Hall, built in the 1920s at 19089 Advent Road, housed a Japanese language school in its basement and served as a meeting place for the Pitt Meadows Japanese Farmers’ Association. Founded in the 1920s, the association supported education and community activities and joined other Lower Fraser Valley associations in 1928 to form the Consolidated Farmers’ Association of the Fraser Valley, which dissolved in 1941.