The BBC has named the Slocan Valley one of its 20 top travel destinations, and not just for its stunning mountain vistas.
The region’s inclusion on the list is due to a new initiative by Arrow Slocan Tourism dubbed the Japanese Canadian Legacy Trail, which will encourage visitors to check out places where Japanese Canadians were interned during the Second World War.
Diane Selkirk, a Vancouver-based travel writer who contributed the section on the Slocan Valley to the BBC list, said their goal was to highlight lesser-known places.
“There are so many beautiful places in the world that a lot of people don’t intuitively know about,” she said. “So the goals of a lot of my work are to steer people to places that are interested in having tourists and have really compelling stories and beautiful landscapes.”
Selkirk said she has visited the Slocan Valley a few times, but it was placed on her radar for the purposes of this story through a conversation with a friend of Japanese descent who told her how meaningful it was to do a bus tour and learn what her parents had gone through as internees. They had rarely spoken of their experience.
New Denver, Sandon, and areas just south of Slocan City were home to thousands of internees between 1942 and 1945. The Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre in New Denver commemorates that era, as does interpretive signage in various places, while the Slocan Valley Historical Society expects to unveil the restored Merriwake next year, a fishing boat that was seized during the internment.
Selkirk said when she learned the legacy trail was being developed to highlight Japanese-Canadian history and the impact of the internment on survivors, “it just struck me as a really deeply compelling and important story, especially right now.”
“We have so many negative things happening in the world and so many displaced people and so many groups under attack for just being who they are,” she said. “To look at this really difficult time in Canadian history and the resilience of Japanese Canadians who came out of those camps is an important story right now.”
Selkirk said while it is a sad chapter in Canadian history, it is significant that locals have tried to prevent it from fading from memory and to ensure future generations know what occurred.
“That’s what struck me as interesting: this is about locals saying ‘this is the story of our place. This is the story we want to share.’
“Those are the ones that I think travellers get so much from. It means that they develop personal connections to a place. When they go home, they have a story to tell that goes beyond mai tais at the beach. It has the power to change who we are, and that’s pretty remarkable gift for a place to give to visitors.”
Selkirk explained that in helping to compile the list — which stretches from Abu Dhabi to Uruguay, but has no other Canadian entries — she started with seven potential locations, with the Slocan Valley one of her top picks.
Writers had to argue on behalf of their places, and she didn’t know where her choices would land until shortly before the list was published. However, she thought the Slocan would make the cut because editors kept coming back with questions. (Her other pick that made the list: Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mexico.)
This is the second year the BBC has compiled such a list. Selkirk explained the BBC has traditionally avoided list-making and they try to avoid creating tourism pressure that isn’t beneficial, so they look for out-of-the-way places.
“I think the Slocan has an awful lot to offer, and I hope that being on this list turns out to be the positive thing,” she said.
Lynn Shortt, tourism development manager with Arrow Slocan Tourism, said that while she has worked with Selkirk before, she only had a little advance warning that the Slocan Valley would be on the list.
“It was absolutely a bit of a fantastic shock,” Shortt said. “I had no idea that it was going to be picked up at this level.”
The Japanese Canadian Legacy Trail’s website is live now, but Short said an official launch will come next year.
The project originated with a conversation Shortt had with New Denver mayor Leonard Casley about how the Slocan had the potential to attract more tourists. They noted the valley had more internment camps, and housed more internees, than any other part of BC.
The Japanese Canadian Legacy Fund and Destination BC provided grants for the project. While concentrated on the Slocan Valley for now, it’s expected to be expanded to the Lower Mainland, Lethbridge, and further east.
Shortt said they hope it will appeal to a broad demographic across North America, including those with direct links to the internment as well as those interested in history and culture generally.
Shortt said she is still wrapping her head around the boost the BBC list could have on the initiative. She said Arrow Slocan Tourism is conscious of making sure travelers who come to the region respect communities and the natural environment.
One anomaly: the picture used with the list (and seen above) doesn’t actually show the Slocan Valley. It was taken near the Shelter Bay ferry landing on Upper Arrow Lake. Selkirk said her visit to the area in September was on a rainy weekend, and resulted in gloomy photo. The photo used instead was taken a couple of years ago, but it came from the wrong pile. Selkirk says it will be corrected.
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