One of Four Guard Towers

 

 

                                Neys Hostel

 

 

When all the B.C. detention camps except New Denver were closed in the summer of 1946, some families that opted to stay in Canada had no specific place to move to. One of the hastily organized hostel was at Neys in Northern Ontario.

Neys Ontario

Former Bay Farm pupil David Aka was a pupil in Neys, a Hostel on the North Shore of Lake Superior. It is situated 15 miles west of Marathon, Ontario. Neys had previously held German officers who were prisoners-of-war. The men were to work for one or the other two large logging companies there.

When the B.C. camps were closing, our family was moved from Slocan to a vacated camp at Neys, Ontario.

It had previously held German officers who were prisoners of war. The Identity of the previous occupants was apparent from the swastika paintings inside the barrack walls. The lookout posts were still standing, but the barbed-wire fences were gone. Later this site became News Provincial Park.

Neys:

In the Middle of Nowhere

Former Tashme pupil Kim Kusano arrived at Neys on July 19, 1946

When the coach loads of Japanese-Canadians arrived from B.C., we had to disembark although there was no train platform to alight on. The coaches were stopped on a steep incline. My mother had been violently ill during the three-day trip across the country. But she made her way downhill, carrying the baby in her arms. So did the others-young and old alike-struggling with their belongings. Everyone who could was lending a helping hand.

The images of ojiisans ( grandfathers) and obaasans (grandmothers) being piggybacked from the train by the able-bodied men will never leave me.

During the approximately two-year period from 1946bto 1948 that Japanese-Canadian families from B.C. stayed in the News area, school facilities had to be provided for the children. However, these Northern Ontario schools in the bush camps for the ex-ghost-town children were paid for and maintained, not by the federal government, but by the companies employing the menfolk.

Neys:

In the Middle of Nowhere

Former Tashme pupil Kim Kusano arrived at Neys on July 19, 1946

During the approximately two-year period from 1946bto 1948 that Japanese-Canadian families from B.C. stayed in the News area, school facilities had to be provided for the children. However, these Northern Ontario schools in the bush camps for the ex-ghost-town children were paid for and maintained, not by the federal government, but by the companies employing the menfolk. Ottawa’s involvement was to organize and staff the schools at the outset, so the federal Department of Labour, Japanese Division, recruited former ghost-town teachers, all women, who had already moved east to Ontario and Quebec.

Neys:

The Train Slowed Down So We Could Jump Off

Former Bay Farm teacher Hideyo Iguchi had moved with her family to London, Ontario after teaching in the Slocan-area camp for almost three years. But she soon began her second stint of teaching Japanese-Canadian children.

On a fine fall day in mid-September 1946, Yoshiko Tanaba and I from London in Southwestern Ontario arrived at Neys. It was a desolate spot on the north shore of Lake Superior. Yoshiko had taught a Popoff and had been principal at New Denver; Aki had also taught at New Denver; and I had taught at Bay Farm.

We had come in answer to a request from Hide Hyodo, the former supervisor of the B.C. Security Commission schools, who was now situated in Hamilton. Because of our experience in the ghost town schools, she wanted us to teach the children from B.C. whose families had been sent to News when the ghost towns closed.

While en route to our northern destination, we learned from the train conductor that Neys was not a regular stop on the Canadian Pacific Railway line. To get off the train we had to first throw out our suitcases, and when the train had slowed down sufficiently, we had to jump off. Luckily, each of us landed on both feet without mishap.

There was a sign on a post saying "Neys," but no station to speak of. Instead there was a small house that served as an office for the foreman of the Pigeon Timber Company. A truck was waiting there to take us to the hostel for the Japanese-Canadian evacuees.

The hostel, converted from a P.O.W. camp, accommodated approximately 500 persons. The numerous huts were partitioned off to take four families in each. The people slept on army-issue cots and ate their meals in a common dining hall.

Former Bay Farm teacher Hideyo Iguchi had moved with her family to London, Ontario after teaching in the Slocan-area camp for almost three years. But she soon began her second stint of teaching Japanese-Canadian children.

On a fine fall day in mid-September 1946, Yoshiko Tanaba and I from London in Southwestern Ontario arrived at Neys. It was a desolate spot on the north shore of Lake Superior. Yoshiko had taught a Popoff and had been principal at New Denver; Aki had also taught at New Denver; and I had taught at Bay Farm.

We had come in answer to a request from Hide Hyodo, the former supervisor of the B.C. Security Commission schools, who was now situated in Hamilton. Because of our experience in the ghost town schools, she wanted us to teach the children from B.C. whose families had been sent to News when the ghost towns closed.

While en route to our northern destination, we learned from the train conductor that Neys was not a regular stop on the Canadian Pacific Railway line. To get off the train we had to first throw out our suitcases, and when the train had slowed down sufficiently, we had to jump off. Luckily, each of us landed on both feet without mishap.

There was a sign on a post saying "Neys," but no station to speak of. Instead there was a small house that served as an office for the foreman of the Pigeon Timber Company. A truck was waiting there to take us to the hostel for the Japanese-Canadian evacuees.

The hostel, converted from a P.O.W. camp, accommodated approximately 500 persons. The numerous huts were partitioned off to take four families in each. The people slept on army-issue cots and ate their meals in a common dining hall.

We three teachers were taken to a former sergeants’ quarters that was to become our home during our stay at the Neys hostel. On the teaching staff besides the three of us from London were Kayou Ochiai (Tashme, New Denver and Hide Hyodo’s successor as schools supervisor) from Montreal, Yoshiko Mitsuki (Lemon Creek) from the hostel itself, Michi Ide (Tashme) from Hamilton, and Margaret Foster of the Anglican Church who had taught kindergarten in Slocan City.

Our Accommodations were in a huge but bare hut. Six of us shared the one bedroom. (Yosh Mitsuki stayed with her family in one of the family huts). The bedroom was large and airy and painted a light colour, but otherwise unadorned and stark looking. Many windows provided plenty of daylight and the overhead lights were sufficient even for reading. Each of us had a cot and a bedside table.On the wall spaces between the beds were some shelves to hold the textbooks that we were using.. But because there weren’t any home-like furnishings, I kept feeling I was sleeping in a sterilized hospital ward.

We had our meals with the RCMP officers in the dining room set aside for them. At mealtime, we sat not only with our "custodians", but also with Dr. Gress, a former German prisoner-of-war who had been asked to remain as a doctor for the hostel.

Quite soon after our arrival, the teachers met to discuss the opening of the school. Kayou Ochiai, our principal, had already made preparatory plans with Miss Hyodo. School supplies , desks and chairs had been sent to the hostel by the Department of Labour from the closed B.C. camps. One of the huts was partitioned into classrooms for Grades 1 to 8, one wing for kindergarten and an assembly all.

(The News hostel school opened on September 23, 1946, with 135 pupils in eight grades.)