Kagetsu 2017 book.qxp_Kagetsu cover 2017-11-03 2:29 PM Page 1 TADASHI JACK KAGETSU e Tree Trunk Can Be My Pillow The Biography of an Outstanding Japanese Canadian TADASHI JACK KAGETSU Author Tadashi Jack Kagetsu (1931–2006) was the youngest son of the “outstanding Japanese Canadian” and prominent Nikkei timber industrialist Eikichi Kagetsu. In e Tree Trunk Can Be My Pillow My Be Can Trunk Tree e Pillow, Jack details the fascinating life and accomplishments of his father, and he follows the Kagetsu family across oceans and continents, telling a uniquely Japanese Canadian story of economic success and sudden dispossession. Jack Kagetsu was a highly talented individual. He received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Toronto in 1957. He went on to an accomplished career in the United States with the Union Carbide Corporation, where he received two patents for technical innovation. He was also a chess master—as a university student, he defeated a Russian grandmaster as well as a US and former world champion. e Tree Trunk Can Be My Pillow is the result of over ten years of research that took Jack across North America, from New York to Virginia, Ontario to British Columbia, on a mission to reconstruct his family history. It is the culmination of Jack’s quest to reclaim lost years, lost knowledge, lost geographies, and lost memories. Published over ten years aer his death, this book tells the remarkable story of Jack’s famous father, and it is an important text for anyone interested in Japanese Canadian history. But the book also represents a personal vindication—a son’s repossession of memory, of relationships, and perhaps ultimately of history. – Trevor Wideman, Simon Fraser University ISBN 978-1-55058-611-4 9 781550 586114 Kagetsu 2017 book REVISED 2018-02.qxp_Kagetsu book 2018-02-07 4:23 PM Page 1 e Tree Trunk Can Be My Pillow Kagetsu 2017 book REVISED 2018-02.qxp_Kagetsu book 2018-02-07 4:23 PM Page 2 Kagetsu 2017 book REVISED 2018-02.qxp_Kagetsu book 2018-02-07 4:23 PM Page 3 e Tree Trunk Can Be My Pillow The Biography of an Outstanding Japanese Canadian TADASHI JACK KAGETSU Introduction by Dr. Jordan Stanger-Ross Kagetsu 2017 book REVISED 2018-02.qxp_Kagetsu book 2018-02-07 4:23 PM Page 4 Copyright © 2017 by Estate of Tadashi Jack Kagetsu Published in Canada by University of Victoria Victoria, BC V8P 5C2 [email protected] Cover image: Sketch of train at Deep Bay Logging, Fanny Bay by Kaz Tsuchida circa 1920s. Book design by Rayola Creative Printed and bound by University of Victoria Printing Services on 100% post-consumer content recycled paper. is book is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) li cense. is means that you are free to copy, redistribute or adapt this book for non-commercial purposes. Under this license, anyone who redistributes or modifies this book, in whole or in part, can do so for free providing they properly attribute the book as follows: Kagetsu, T. J. (2017). e tree trunk can be my pillow: e biography of an outstanding Japanese Canadian. Victoria, BC: University of Victoria. Additionally, if you redistribute this book, in whole or in part, in either a print or digital format, then you must retain on at least one page at the front of a print copy the following attribution: Kagetsu, T. J. (2017). e tree trunk can be my pillow: e biography of an outstanding Japanese Canadian. Victoria, BC: University of Victoria. is book is published by the University of Victoria under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license. For questions about this book, please contact the Copyright and Scholarly Communication Office, University of Victoria Libraries at [email protected]. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Kagetsu, Tadashi Jack, 1931-2006, author e tree trunk can be my pillow : the biography of an outstanding Japanese Canadian / Tadashi Jack Kagetsu. Includes bibliographical references. Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-1-55058-611-4 (socover).--ISBN 978-1-55058-612-1 (PDF).-- ISBN 978-1-55058-613-8 (EPUB) 1. Kagetsu, Eikichi. 2. Japanese Canadians--Biography. 3. Businesspeople--British Columbia--Biography. 4. British Columbia--Biography. 5. Biographies. I. Title. FC106.J3K36 2017 971.1'0049560092 C2017-903950-4 C2017-903951-2 Kagetsu 2017 book REVISED 2018-02.qxp_Kagetsu book 2018-02-07 4:23 PM Page 5 Contents Introduction i Chapter 1 Hard Life of a First Born 1 Chapter 2 Getting Started in a New Land 9 Chapter 3 Early Logging Ventures 13 Chapter 4 A Large-scale Logging Operation 27 Chapter 5 Life in a Logging Camp 39 Chapter 6 An Unwanted Partnership 49 Chapter 7 Personal Life 57 Chapter 8 Maintaining Japanese Traditions 73 Chapter 9 Education Is a Top Priority 83 Chapter 10 A Man of Faith in Action 95 Chapter 11 e Canadian Japanese Association in Action 105 Chapter 12 Other Activities in the Community 111 Chapter 13 Participation in Memorable Events 119 Chapter 14 e Vimy Pilgrimage and Berlin Olympics 133 Chapter 15 A Great Honour is Savoured 145 Chapter 16 Pearl Harbor and Its Aermath 155 Chapter 17 Our Lives are Changed Forever 169 Chapter 18 Meagre Compensation for Liquidated Assets 177 Chapter 19 Starting a New Life in the East 187 Chapter 20 e Elder Statesman is Still Active 197 Chapter 21 Life’s Sunset 209 Bibliography 215 Appendix I List of Fanny Bay Residents (1942) 231 Appendix II Canadian Japanese Association 233 Appendix III Speech by Eikichi Kagetsu, Representative from Canada 235 Appendix IV Security Report on Eikichi Kagetsu 241 Appendix V MacInnis Speech on Eikichi Kagetsu Case 244 Appendix VI Eikichi Kagetsu Descendancy Chart 250 Kagetsu 2017 book REVISED 2018-02.qxp_Kagetsu book 2018-02-07 4:23 PM Page 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS On behalf of the Kagetsu family, we extend sincere heartfelt gratitude for the contribution of numerous individuals and organizations to Tadashi Jack Kagetsu’s original manuscript. Translation of Eikichi Kagetsu’s Japanese lan- guage documents into English was completed by Takako Kagetsu Huang and Bill Hashizume. Further acknowledgements include but are not limited to: Ann Carroll, Claudia Cole, Janette Glover-Geidt, Tsuneharu Gonnami, Rick James, Barb Lemky, Bob Muckle, Arv Olson, Red Robinson, Fred Rogers, Catherine Siba, Barbara Simkins, Ann Watson, and Tony Wilson. anks also to Alisa Lazear, Library Intern, School of Library, Archival and Information Studies, UBC, who meticulously checked the bibliography. Special thanks to Dr. Jordan Stanger-Ross for his introduction to this book, to Nikkei National Museum staff Sherri Kajiwara, Linda Kawamoto Reid, Lisa Uyeda, Carolyn Nakagawa, Erica Isomura, and researchers Trevor Wideman, Eiji Okawa, Jessica Gerlach, Audrey MacDonald, Lane McGarrity, Kaitlin Findlay and Nathan Yeo. We acknowledge the financial assistance of the Tadashi Jack Kagetsu family, the Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre, and the Landscapes of Injustice (www.landscapesofinjustice.com) and Asian Canadians on Vancouver Island (http://vi-asiancanadians.ca) research projects. Kagetsu 2017 book REVISED 2018-02.qxp_Kagetsu book 2018-02-07 4:23 PM Page i Introduction 1 By Dr. Jordan Stanger-Ross Department of History, University of Victoria his book is a son’s tribute to his father, delivered to readers aer the death Tof both. As Jack Kagetsu laboured for a decade on his manuscript, trav- elling to archives, combing newspaper articles, and organizing his find- ings as well as his memories into writing, he must have felt that he was discovering parts of himself as well as his father. It is a very personal history. e book also has communal resonance for Japanese Canadians. It reflects rev- erence for elders and speaks to the accomplishments and losses of a generation of immigrant founders, the Issei. In the case of Eikichi Kagetsu both accom- plishment and loss were of staggering proportions; perhaps no one else built so much, only to see it stolen in the mid-twentieth century odyssey of Japanese Canadians. Pull back further and we read a Canadian history. Kagetsu was an immigrant entrepreneur in a province and a country awash with the same. He was a Canadian delegate at the unveiling of the Vimy Ridge War Memorial in 1936, making time during that visit to pay respects at the gravesites of members of his community 1 This introduction benefited from the reading and comments of the who fell during the Great War and to take an aernoon tea at Buckingham Palace. wonderful students whose research His story is Canadian, too, in his uprooting, internment, and dispossession in the assistance also contributed to its 1940s—major episodes in the history of the country. Published now, 75 years aer production, including: Kaitlin Findlay, the internment began, and in the midst of a renewed international reckoning with Trevor Wideman, and Nicole Yakashiro. the intermingled histories of migration, race, and national security, this very in- Thanks also to Sherri Kajiwara for inviting this contribution and to the timate story also speaks to topics of global significance. Kagetsu family for their encouragement Kagetsu arrived in British Columbia in June of 1906, at the age of 23. He of this volume as a whole and their rode a wave of mass migration. More than 11,000 Japanese came to British openness to a scholarly introduction. Columbia between 1906 and 1908, joining a booming province whose popu- i Kagetsu 2017 book REVISED 2018-02.qxp_Kagetsu book 2018-02-07 4:23 PM Page ii TREE TRUNK – MY PILLOW | KAGETSU lation doubled during the decade, mostly due to immigrants.2 Like so many, Kagetsu came to Canada because of the stories of returnees.