The character at the top of this page means "open gate". In the Shinto religion when you pass through the gate at the entrance to a temple you are leaving the world as you know it behind and enter another world of spirit and religion. I found a bit of irony in the symbolism of the gantry of the ferry dock where we, as Islanders, pass to come and go from our home out into the rest of the world.

On March 30, 1942 the ferry landing in Eagledale served as that gate. Bainbridge Islanders, Nikkei, passed through that gate and it took them from the land and homes they loved into an unknown void for three years.

It is now prophetic that in the near future a memorial of that time will be built at that same location and it will include a gantry of the ferry landing.

INTO THE PAST