Japanese Burials at Ross Bay Cemetery
Grave List and Photos
Based on the field research, we confirmed the places of all the graves of those Japanese people buried in Ross Bay Cemetery, ascertained so far. The grave list as well as the photos of all the existing gravestones have been uploaded in this website.
If you or your friends have an ancestor or a relative who immigrated to Canada from the 1880s to the 1920s (during the Meiji and Taisho eras in Japan), please take the opportunity to review the name list carefully. If you find a name which may be your or your friend’s ancestor or relative, please look at the photo of the gravestone and think contemplatively of that person, praying for peaceful rest for his or her soul.
♦The grave list including names, ages, death or burial dates, etc. of Japanese pioneer immigrants ascertained so far, is downloadable from here in PDF format.
“The catalogue of Japanese Pioneer Immigrants in Ross Bay Cemetery, 2010” [PDF 176 KB]
♦Catalogues of photos of all the existing grave markers of Japanese immigrants in Ross Bay Cemetery, are downloadable from here in PDF format.
Photo Catalogue No.1（RBJ001 – RBJ035）[PDF 3.3MB]
Photo Catalogue No.2（RBJ036 – RBJ066）[PDF 3.2MB]
Photo Catalogue No.3（RBJ071 – RBJ106）[PDF 3.7MB]
Photo Catalogue No.4（RBJ107 – RBJ138）[PDF 3.2MB]
Photo Catalogue No.5（RBJ139 – RBJ163）[PDF 3.0MB]
♦Additional materials related to the Kake-Hashi Society which organized the grave restoration, are downloadable from here in PDF format.
Kake-Hashi Society Campaign Letter (bilingual) [PDF 222KB]
“Monologue of Graves at Ross Bay Cemetery”, Vancouver Shinpo, 8th Oct. 1998 (in Japanese) [PDF 1.3MB]
Acknowledgement
The photos of gravestones before restoration were provided by Yoshiro Arakawa, the former chairperson of the Kake-Hashi Society. The list of Japanese graves in Ross Bay Cemetery uploaded here was prepared carefully by JCCO Victoria based on our field researches made at the cemetery, using materials collected by the Kak-Hhashi Society and the data prepared by Gordon and Ann-Lee Switzer (the authors of “The Stories of Victoria’s Japanese Pioneers, 2007”, The Old Cemeteries Society). We would like to take this opportunity to express our appreciation for their extraordinary efforts in this matter.
Japanese Canadian Community Organization of Victoria
A research-based non-profit society for the highest standards of multiculturalism