The Fujikawa family owned and operated a farm in Silverdale BC. They bought the land in 1911 and managed to protect ownership of the land under the name of a non-Japanese son-in-law just before the internment of second world war. Sections of it remained in the family until the 1980’s. About two-thirds of the land is now a park and community hall.

A small garden is being developed on the site to commemorate the Fujikawa family. This bench is part of that garden.

Plans were first developed in 2013 with the help of our friends Cameron and LJ.

… and more detailed drawings for the steel frame of the bench were developed in 2015-2016. Our friend Tom helped with the drawings and with sourcing a fabricator that could handle those curves.

The completed bench frame arrived in our driveway in 2016.

The benchtop is 6/4” ipe. Woodwork and mounting brackets were completed in Summer 2017.

Formwork for the bench foundation was designed and built in Fall 2018.

In December 2018 the material was transported to Silverdale, the frame was installed and foundations were poured.

Bench tops were installed temporarily in early 2019. Cousin Derek approves.

As it turns out, it’s hard to find a mason in Mission. After some false leads, we found Tom the Rock Man. We took the bench top off in preparation for the masonary. Rock work was finished just before the labour day weekend.

As soon as the rock work was done we re-installed the bench top. Here’s Kim and cousin Harvey surveying the finished bench. The orange line in the background is the first garden bed for the project, it will get installed later in September.

Kim is now deep into thinking about the plantings and interpretive material for the garden.