<Begin Segment 28>

TI: Do you think the community was intentionally being deceived, or do you think that was just what people thought at that time?

HS: Well, people thought, but on top of that, I have a feeling also that, that the decision was made that they'd have to be out of the coast. Nobody had thought beyond that. You get them out, that was it. Get them out. But what was to happen to them? No one said, said to the Mounties, more or less, "You look after them." Because when that discussion came up, the commissioner of the Mounties at that time, had said to the people, and the military had said, "Listen, this is a foolish idea. There's no threat of this group on the West Coast." There's no, it's a conceived threat, but as far as the navy and army was concerned, there was no threat. They didn't believe that this would, that they were going to cause any trouble. So they didn't think it was going to happen that there was any happen. And the RCMP said they didn't think we should do this. So this was actually done at a meeting in, it actually occurred in, I think the meeting occurred probably in Vancouver, and this is the, and this is the quotes from a General Pope, who was the commander of the Western section of the army, and Commissioner Meade, who was the commissioner of the RCMP. And they said, "Don't do this, because it is not necessary." We know, and the RCMP said, "We know who are the nationals and we know who are, what people might be potentially dangerous, and we will," and he said, "we could round up all of them and it would be about thirty-nine, forty people, and that's all we would think that would be a problem. The rest, I don't think you have to worry about."

TI: Well, so when you talk about the rest, so you have about six hundred in Prince Rupert --

HS: No, we're talking about 22,000 on the West Coast.

TI: Right. But the, so this was being undertaken by the RCMP?

HS: Yeah. The RCMP had to do it.

TI: And were they, were they armed when they were there?

HS: Well, they all carried sidearms.

TI: Were they there in large presence, or were they kind of more in the background?

HS: No, they were more in the background. We had, we had how many RCMP that came down to the station, probably about six.

TI: So you didn't feel like you were prisoners in any way, you were just being escorted to...

HS: We were escorted out and told, and told that, where we were supposed to go, and so we did. We got on the train, and the next thing you know, we're gone.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.