Tender Research: Field Notes from the Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre, New Denver, BC

<jats:p> The Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre (NIMC), located in new Denver, BC, is a small-scale community-initiated preservation project that materialized from the efforts of 20 previously interned Japanese Canadian residents. The site preserves architectural remnants from several original internment shacks established in this area during World War II. This paper examines the presence of gardens, common at heritage sites such as this one, and raises the question of how gardens, as living things, embody memory. In so doing it reflects on the research approach appropriate to such a vexed site of collective trauma, through the notion of tender research. This article features online ( http://www.cjc-online.ca ) photographs of the Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre. </jats:p>