Tozan Opening Ceremony

On July 11th, the Tozan Society of Nanaimo held a grand "re-opening" of the "Dragon Kiln" at Tamagawa Gakuen of Canada Society.

The ceremony was open to the public, and over 250 people attended the day-long event. The attendees had a chance to see over a thousand pieces of pottery that the kiln produced.

Representatives from Tamagawa Gakuen in Tokyo, along with representatives from the local organizations such as the City of Nanaimo, Province of B.C., and Vancouver Island University gave speeches to cerebrate the Kiln opening. One of the highlights was a very entertaining performance by Isaburoh Hanayagi, one of the representatives from Tamagawa Gakuen. He performed a traditional Japanese dance that was very well received by all who were lucky enough to see it.

The Tozan Kiln which was originally built at Vancouver Island University, (Malaspina at the time) in 1995, was dismantled in 2005 and moved to Tamagawa Nanaimo Campus. Members of the Tozan Society and many other volunteers and supporters were involved in moving the kiln brick by brick. It took over a year to rebuild the Dragon Kiln.

Ian Nattrass, the president of Tozan Cultural Society says, "We can be proud of assisting in the fulfillment of the original dream of Les Beardsley & Yukio Yamamoto. Their dream began prior to 1995 in Flagstaff & was kept alive at Malaspina (now VIU) until just after our 10th anniversary, in 2005.

We acknowledge the generous support of the local community, the funding from the City of Nanaimo, as well as the province through BC Gaming, Vancouver Island University, the Vancouver Foundation, plus the support of many local businesses & suppliers.

A huge thank you goes to the hardworking Tozan Society members & volunteers without whom this project would never have been accomplished. Your passion and commitment has been truly outstanding.

Our largest thank you and appreciation must go to Tamagawa University for providing us a site to build the new Tozan Kiln. Tamagawa and their staff led by Yuho Okada and earlier on by Travis Cote, have made us very welcome. We are pleased to be able to pass the dream on to the Tamagawa site now in 2009 and we know that it will be kept alive for many years to come."