Mural 30

6.10M x 2.59M (20’ x 8’6”), CROFT STREET

the lone scout

Painted in 1991 by Stanley Hiromichi Taniwa,
Clanwilliam, Manitoba

The Artist

Stan Taniwa left Chemainus as a baby, evacuated with his parents and six siblings to an internment camp in the interior of BC during WWII. What followed was an extremely difficult time for Japanese Canadians. Taniwa’s father died, leaving a large family for his mother to raise single-handedly. The Taniwas settled in Thunder Bay, Ontario, where Stan originally studied architectural drafting.

When he undertook fine art studies at the University of Manitoba, it was to pursue an interest in ceramics. He began exhibiting his work in 1970, and has since shown his ceramic creations from Ontario to Alberta. Taniwa teaches and is a juror for the Canada Council and the Manitoba Festival of the Arts. He has restored an old brick church in Eden, Manitoba, where he has established his home and studio. Since The Lone Scout was painted in 1991, Taniwa has completed other paintings as well as continuing his work in clay.

The Art

Edward Shige Yoshida was born in Victoria, B.C. in 1908, and was raised in the quiet mill town of Chemainus. In 1929, he realized his dream in starting the 2nd Chemainus Boy Scouts, an all-Japanese Canadian troop and the first of its kind in the country. The delicate, porcelain plate quality of his portrait in the mural, The Lone Scout, belies the wit, energy and determination of this slightly built but significant character in the life of Chemainus.

Chemainus town was home to a community of 300 Japanese Canadians who had settled in the area between 1900 and the 1940s. Mill workers, fishers, business people and their families, all were interned after the attack on Pearl Harbour.

By a series of coincidences, Stan Taniwa came to paint The Lone Scout, and included in the background of the mural members of his family, then and now. Next Mural >