How a Man From My Hometown Inspired My Journey Between Japan and Canada
There is a story behind every company. This is the story behind AK JAPAN.
I was born and raised in Iwate, Japan. Yet I had to cross the Pacific Ocean before I truly met the greatest person my hometown ever produced. I didn’t meet him in Japan.
I met him in Canada.
And although he had passed away decades earlier, his dream would quietly shape my own — and eventually become the inspiration behind AK JAPAN.
A Victoria Day I Will Never Forget
When I first came to Canada in the early 1990s, I was simply a young Japanese student trying to build a new life. My first job was at the Visitor Information Centre in Victoria, British Columbia.
Then one Victoria Day, something extraordinary happened. A delegation from Morioka — the capital city of my home prefecture of Iwate — arrived in Victoria to celebrate the friendship between the two cities. Suddenly, I found myself surrounded by the familiar dialect of home, spoken thousands of kilometres away from Japan.
Curious, I asked why they had come. Their answer surprised me.
“Victoria is Morioka’s sister city because of Inazo Nitobe.”
I recognized the name immediately. Like every Japanese person of my generation, I had seen his portrait countless times on Japan’s ¥5,000 banknote. But I realized something embarrassing: I knew almost nothing about him. I didn’t know he was born in Morioka. I didn’t know he had devoted his life to strengthening understanding between Japan and the West. And I certainly didn’t know that he had passed away right there in Victoria — the very city where I had just begun my Canadian journey.
It felt as though I had crossed the Pacific, only for my hometown to find me again.
The Person Who Dreamed of Building a Bridge
Inazo Nitobe was born into a samurai family in Morioka in 1862. As a young university student, he was once asked why he wanted to study English. His answer became legendary:
“I wish to become a bridge across the Pacific.”
Those words defined his entire life.
He studied abroad in the United States and Germany, married Mary Elkinton, an American Quaker, and dedicated himself to helping people from different cultures understand one another. In 1900, he published Bushido: The Soul of Japan in English, introducing Japanese values and ethics to readers around the world. The book became an international bestseller and remains one of the most influential books ever written about Japanese culture.
Later, after the First World War, Nitobe served as Under-Secretary General of the League of Nations, where diplomats admired him as “The Star of Geneva” for his tireless work promoting international peace. He never stopped building bridges between people.
His Final Journey
In 1933, despite declining health, Nitobe travelled to Canada to attend an international conference in Banff, Alberta, hoping to encourage dialogue during a time of growing global tension. He never returned to Japan. On October 15, 1933, he passed away in Victoria before boarding his ship home.
The man who had spent his life building a bridge across the Pacific took his final breath on the Canadian shore of that very ocean.
Yet Canada never forgot him. Victoria honours his memory with a monument overlooking the Pacific Ocean, mirroring another monument in Morioka — two identical stones facing each other across the water. The sister-city relationship between Victoria and Morioka continues to this day because of his vision.
His bridge still stands.
Finding Him Again
More than thirty years after that unforgettable Victoria Day, I visited the Nitobe Memorial Garden at the University of British Columbia. It is considered one of the most authentic Japanese gardens outside Japan — and it carries a moving history of its own. An earlier memorial was damaged during the Second World War, the very war Nitobe had tried to prevent. Afterwards, Japan, the Japanese Canadian community, and UBC came together to rebuild it. Canada could have let his memory fade. Instead, Canada chose to rebuild it.
As I walked through the garden, I discovered something remarkable: the entire garden symbolizes Nitobe’s lifelong dream. The pond represents the Pacific Ocean. Japanese trees stand on one shore, Canadian trees on the other. And connecting the two shores is a long wooden bridge built of seventy-seven logs — his bridge across the Pacific, transformed into a landscape you can walk across.
As I stood quietly beside the water, something unexpected happened.
I cried.
Not because I was sad. But because, for the first time, I understood.
Suddenly, My Own Journey Made Sense
I left Japan. I built my life in Canada. Years later, I founded AK JAPAN with one simple mission: to bring authentic Japanese craftsmanship directly from passionate makers in Japan to people across Canada and North America.
Without realizing it, I had spent decades walking a path remarkably similar to the one Nitobe had envisioned. Connecting Japan and Canada. Connecting people. Connecting cultures.
Maybe it is only a coincidence. Or maybe life has a mysterious way of placing the right people in our path at exactly the right time.
Either way, I now understand that every product we import carries more than quality craftsmanship. It carries a story. It carries the passion of Japanese makers. And in its own small way, it helps strengthen the bridge between two countries that have both become my home.
Today, every customer, every partner in Japan, every supporter, and every friend who believes in our mission helps lay another small stone on that bridge.
That is the story behind why I started AK JAPAN.
Continue reading:
- Our Story — About AK JAPAN
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