A Day Trip to Poulsbo, WA and a visit to the Bainbridge Island Japanese-American Exclusion Memorial

Poulsbo is a cute town founded by Norwegians.  It is full of interesting shops, coffee places and nice restaurants.  We had coffee, made some purchases at a large rock and mineral shop and sat by the water.  The town sits on Liberty Bay and there are parks on the waterfront to relax in.

We made a stop nearby at the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial.  The sign for this is small, but the memorial is well worth a visit.  It honors the Japanese-Americans who were forced into internment camps by the U.S. government during WWII.  Bainbridge Island was home to a large farming community with many Nisei Japanese-Americans.  They had to leave everything and were forced onto a ferry and eventually kept in a detention center in Utah.  There are some positive stories in all this that show that individuals can behave better than their government: a farmer bought his neighbor's land at auction and then sold it back to him for $1 when he returned from detention.