CP Rail caboose leaving Jim Hadgkiss Park, Japanese garden coming soon.

BY MARC GUIDO BOLEN

More than three decades after it was installed, Maple Ridge is saying goodbye to its Canadian Pacific Rail caboose but welcoming a new Japanese garden soon after.

Shea Henry, the executive director of the Maple Ridge Museum, said that the caboose was beyond repair and that a large part of the damage likely came from rain. “Cabooses and train cars are meant to dry out on the move, so if it’s sitting, there’s nothing we can do to keep it dry,” Henry said.

Mayor Dan Ruimy said that the city will manage the process of removing the caboose and that they want to get it done before construction begins on the new garden. “It just wasn’t safe anymore,” Ruimy said. “It’s not something that the society has the funds to do. Even repairing it was too costly.” 

Plans to remove the train car were sped up so that it does not interfere with the construction of the new Japanese garden in Jim Hadgkiss Park. The City of Maple Ridge has agreed to cover the cost of the removal at an estimated price of $40,000 to $70,000.

Since CP Rail donated the decommissioned car to the Maple Ridge Museum, The Caboose has overlooked the Fraser River at Jim Hadgkiss Park for 33 years. Until the caboose fell into disrepair, the Dewdney Alouette Railway Society offered tours of the train car on the last Sunday of the month. 

Henry said the Caboose, which was originally built in Montreal in 1944, commemorates the city’s historic connection to the railway. 

“We had five railway stations put into Maple Ridge when the [Canadian Pacific Railway] line was completed, and so those five stations became five of our historic neighborhoods.” Henry said, “The history of the railway here…just because the caboose is getting removed, we’re definitely not going to ignore that part of the history.”

While the Maple Ridge Historical Society is sad to see the car leave, Henry said they are planning to put in something else to commemorate the city’s connection to the railway, but that they are still figuring out what that is. 

In a collaboration with the Japanese Gardeners Association, the City of Maple Ridge, and the Maple Ridge Historical Society, Jim Hadgkiss Park will see a new garden that commemorates the city’s connection and legacy to Japanese-Canadians, near the current location of the CP train car.

Tim Nishibata, the vice president of the Japanese Gardeners Association, said they are naming the garden “Ichigo” which means strawberries and “one chance” in Japanese, to commemorate the large population of Japanese berry farmers that previously lived in the region. Maple Ridge was home to over one-third of the Japanese Canadian population until internment in the early 1940’s. Nishibata said, “We hope that this garden can…bring out creativity, or tranquility, and emotion and also…embrace the history of what this space used to have.” 

By incorporating plenty of trees, Nishibata said the garden will be easy to maintain. In addition, the garden will utilize bricks in its design to represent the brick factory that previously occupied the area. With many inclusions, Nishibata said that there will still be space for tobogganing. 

Henry said one of the reasons they are building the garden at Jim Hadgkiss park is because of the research the museum has put into the Japanese Canadian community that lived in the area. Henry said, “It’s working in collaboration and concert with the permanent exhibit we have on at the museum about the Japanese-Canadian community, so it’s a lovely commemoration project.”

Ruimy said the garden is a wonderful opportunity to honour Japanese Canadians’ legacies in Maple Ridge.

The Japanese garden will begin construction at the beginning of 2026 and is planned to be completed that fall.