Wong Bark Ging 黃柏振:
A History of My Father’s Market Gardens

Author Ging Wei Wong 黃景煒 | December 13, 2021

“My most vivid memory took place in early autumn. Our Chinese vegetables like bok choy and gai choy matured into tracts of bright yellow flowers. Dwarfed by the lofty stalks, it was an adventure to romp between the rows.”

One hundred years ago my father stepped onto Canadian soil for the first time. It wasn’t until he passed away in 1988 that I researched how he came to stay grounded as a market gardener in Edmonton.

China was in turmoil in the mid-1800s with food scarcity, economic instability, crime, and political unrest. Dreams of a better life led to a mass departure to so-called lands of opportunity – referred to as “Gold Mountain 金山” triggering large-scale immigration to Canada with the gold rush in 1858.[1]

Between 1881 and 1885 a large influx of 17,000 Chinese labourers were recruited for the construction of the British Columbia portion of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Once Chinese labourers were no longer needed, the BC and federal governments passed discriminatory legislation aimed to keep the Chinese out of Canada.