This is a photo of the Miss Sandner, a boat built by my grandfather Kiheiji Kishi and his cousin Saeji Kishi while they were interned at Christina Lake. I found this enlarged photo hanging on the wall of the Christina Lake Visitors’ Centre when I went there this summer. The people on the boat are likely the Benninger family and friends. The photo was probably taken in the 1950s at the foot of the lake. I’m not sure who owned the boat but my guess would be Lincoln and/or Randy Sandner.

During the war, the boat was used for transporting people and goods between Alpine Inn, where about 100 Japanese Canadians were living, and the foot of the lake. It was moored at Alpine Inn along with a smaller boat called the Calypso.

The Kishis built fishing boats at Alpine Inn during the war and then at the foot of the lake after the war. These boats were shipped by flatbed railcars to the coast. Some of the boats that I believe were built at Christina Lake are the Shelaine, Harbour Light, and Cheryl T.

The Miss Sandner was built in the same style as their fishing boats and it looks exactly the same as the Harbour Light.

The Saeji Kishi family returned to Steveston in the early 1950s where they resumed building and repairing fishing boats. Saeji Kishi’s sons Yoichi (Jim) and Etsuo (Wayne) continued the boatbuilding business until the mid 1980s. The Kiheiji Kishi family remained at Christina Lake where Kiheiji’s son Isao (my father) married my mother Florence Kimura and raised our family. They all worked for Sandner Brothers Lumber Company after the war.