Episode #16 Internment Years

It is a largely forgotten blemish on British Columbia’s and Canada’s history, one that creates a
potent stigma in the Columbia River Basin. During both the First and Second World Wars,
thousands of people, many of them Canadian citizens, were interned in makeshift camps
throughout the region. Russian Doukhobors, Austrians, Germans, and Japanese were
considered threats to the country and so the government uprooted them, changing their lives
forever. This episode features a New Denver man who made a documentary about the letters
written during internment that he found in an old church. We also discover a book titled The
Kissing Fence, about Doukhobor parents separated from their children, and we look back on the
dark years of Kootenay internment.