By Mike Bieling

To members of the Old Cemeteries Society and the many others devoted to the preservation and study of local cemeteries and gravemarkers, it is important to support the use of our historic burial grounds as places of community remembrance. For more than 20 years, an excellent example of such use was the annual Vancouver Island Obon Bus Tour by members of the Japanese-Canadian Buddhist community. Plans for a modified form of Obon observance at these locations have been announced for 2009.

2009 Obon Observances on Vancouver Island

Obon, or "The Feast of Lanterns", is a Japanese Buddhist festival that begins on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month (July-August), in honour of the spirits of the community's deceased ancestors. This custom originated in China and has been celebrated in Japan for more than 500 years. Over time, some older, non-Buddhist beliefs and practices have become part of the festival, which combines elements of a holiday for family reunions, an annual gathering to clean ancestors' graves and monuments, and an opportunity for the spirits of the ancestors to revisit their families' household altars. The three day event traditionally includes a Bon dance, or Bon Odori, that expresses gratitude toward one's ancestors. In some respects, Obon resembles the Roman Catholic holiday of All Souls' Day, or the Mexican Day of the Dead, at the beginning of November.

Following the arrival of the first Japanese immigrant in BC in 1877, a number of Japanese communities grew up around Vancouver Island's fishing, mining, forestry, and farming industries. Bringing their families with them and seeing themselves as permanent settlers here, the Japanese established burial places that were in use for more than fifty years. After all Japanese-Canadians on the West Coast were detained and exiled to internment camps in the BC Interior in April, 1942, these burial grounds suffered badly from years of vandalism and neglect. From the late 1950s on, efforts were made by the Japanese-Canadian community to the record the names and other information from vanished and vanishing grave markers, and members of the Buddhist Church in Vancouver began visiting these neglected cemeteries with their minister at Obon, to perform a service and clean graves and markers. In 1986, this activity was taken over by the BC Buddhist Churches Federation, who organized a Vancouver Island Obon Bus Tour from the mainland than continued until 2007. This was a commemoration separate from the Obon ceremony at Ross Bay Cemetery held under the auspices of the Old Cemeteries Society and the Japanese-Canadian Buddhist community of Victoria. Unfortunately, it eventually became difficult to maintain the participation necessary to organize the bus tour and 2007 was the final year that it took place.

In order that some form of Obon observance continue at locations other than Ross Bay, Bishop Orai Fujikawa of the Jodo Shinshu Buddhist Temple in Richmond will be visiting a number of other Vancouver Island cemeteries over the weekend of August 7, 8 and 9, 2009. Bishop Fujikawa plans to bring a couple of friends with him, and the public is invited to attend these services to help keep the memory of this once-vibrant part of our Vancouver Island communities alive.

For further information about the 2009 Obon observances on Vancouver Island, please contact Bishop Orai Fujikawa of the Jodo Shinshu Buddhist Temples of Canada at mofuji@shaw.ca, or Mike Bieling of the Old Cemeteries Society at oldcemeterian@shaw.ca.