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Wednesday, July 28, 2021

Hope to Sunshine Valley( Formerly the Tashme Internment Camp)

July 28, 2021



The Hope Slide, the high point on today’s ride.


Today’s ride: 25 kms (but 850 metres of climbing)

Trip total: 255 kms


Ruth: Well, the mystery tour carries on, but the jury is still out on whether or not we will be able to continue. The Garrison Lake fire is raging a few kilometres away from the highway between Manning Park and Princeton. Air quality plummeted through that corridor today and it is very possible Manning will have to be a turn around point. Gord has informed me that this is contrary to his magical thinking about unicorns, rainbows and clear skies through BC. I think he may have suffered a stroke. 


We are camping at the RV park in Sunshine Valley after a short but hard day of climbing. The owners kindly told us that there is a bear in the area and suggested we:

  1. Put our food in a cooler?!$#*! 
  2. And bring it into our tent **#%$&?!!!!  

I guess that’s how they feed their wildlife. 


Sunshine Valley was “home” to BC’s largest Japanese internet camp, Tashme. More than 2,000 people in more than three hundred shacks survived four cold winters in this valley. The population was largely made up of women, children and the elderly. The men had already been separated from their families and sent to build three of BC’s highways,  including the highway between Hope and Princeton. Our tent is sitting in a field where rows and rows of tar paper shacks once stood.


There is a wonderful little museum here that was opened on our request. It’s really worth a visit. The owner and curator, Ryan Ellen, gave us a tour and shared a lot of his knowledge of the Tashme camp. Less reliable was the NFB film made at the time.  It continued to refer to Tashme as a town rather than an internment camp and suggested that the Japanese became healthier once they were relocated. 








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