September 12, 2025
8:30am-06:00pm
Redding, CA to Tule Lake and the Tule Lake National Monument     

Join clergy and parishioners from the Episcopal Diocese of Northern California and others in a day-long pilgrimage to the Tule Lake National Monument.

• Learn more about the incarceration of people of Japanese descent, including children and citizens, and the camp at Tule Lake.
• Visit museums, a restored guard tower and jail, and the remains of other camp buildings.
• Join us in a service of commemoration and lament led by diocesan clergy.

About TULE Lake

In 1942, the US government removed over 125,000 people of Japanese descent from the western US and incarcerated them without due process in concentration camps located in remote areas. One of the camps, the Tule Lake War Relocation Center, lies in the northeastern corner of our diocese and has unique significance among Japanese Americans as the maximum-security site used to punish those from across the western US who were deemed disloyal. However, relatively few people are aware of its historical significance.

Our diocese has created a multifaceted program to address this. This program includes a series of articles about the incarceration of Japanese and Japanese Americans published in the Beloved Community Resource Newsletter of the EDNC Commission for Intercultural Ministries, and a June 2025 workshop, The Tule Lake Concentration Camp: Reflections and Lessons. The next component of this program will be a pilgrimage to the Tule Lake War Relocation/Segregation Center.

1. Town of Tulelake

Tour participants will be able to stretch their legs at the Tulelake-Butte Valley Fairgrounds and visit two features transported from the concentration camp site: the top part of a guard tower and part of barracks built in 1944 to accommodate prisoners transferred from Manzanar, another concentration camp. After the fairgrounds, we will go to Otis Roper Park in the town of Tulelake for box lunches provided by the Diocese.

2. Outside the national monument

We have requested access to foundations of a latrine that served 250-300 people in Block 73 and the concentration camp cemetery

3. Within the Tule Lake National Monument

California Historic Landmark 850-2 Monument: The State Historical Marker project was chartered by the Sacramento Japanese American Citizens League and Northern California/Western Nevada District Council and built in 1979.

Tule Lake Visitor’s Center and Jail: The concrete jail, originally designed for twenty inmates, at times held more than 100 men. The jail was built in February 1945, fell into disrepair, and restored in 2022.

Stockade: The open field surrounding the jail was converted to a military prison during the imposition of martial law, November 1943 through August 1944. The area was surrounded by a fence topped with barbed wire and guard towers. Men imprisoned within the stockade lived in two barracks moved from elsewhere within the camp or within unheated tents pitched directly on the ground.

4. Outside the Tule Lake National Monument

WRA Citizen Isolation Center (Camp Tulelake): used as a guardhouse to imprison 133 men who refused to answer affirmatively two questions on a poorly written loyalty questionnaire. After the closure of the Segregation Center, Camp Tulelake was converted in summer 1944 to a POW camp for German and Italian POWs hired by local growers to work on farms.

At all stops on the tour, following comments from the docent, we will offer opportunities for discussion, prayer, and reflection. We intend to hold a service of lament in the stockade area.

Other details: We will send information on hotels and restaurants in Redding, medical release forms, and other tour details to all registrants.

Itinerary:

We have designed the pilgrimage with the support of National Park Service staff and the Tule Lake Committee, a 501(3)(c) organization whose mission includes educating the public about the unique role of the Tule Lake segregation center.

When: September 12, 2025, departure from Redding at 8:30am and return at 6:00pm

Who: In addition to pilgrims, tour participants include two medical professionals, a docent from the Tule Lake Committee, and the Rev. Canon John Kitagawa, whose father, the Rev. Daisuke Kitagawa, was an Episcopal priest who ministered to Episcopalians and others incarcerated at Tule Lake.

What: The Tule Lake War Relocation/Segregation Center consisted of over 1,100 acres but the national monument includes only 33 acres of the original site. The tour will include the following four segments.

Where: We will gather at All Saints’ Episcopal Church, 2150 Benton Drive, Redding, CA.

Pilgrimage participants will be able to park their vehicles at All Saints’ and board an air-conditioned 56-person charter bus for the 2.25h drive to the Tule Lake National Monument.

Pilgrims also will have the option of staying at a Redding hotel before and after the pilgrimage; we are working to secure lodgings at a discount. We encourage carpooling to Redding and will also provide information as appropriate.

COST: $50, includes round trip transportation in an air-conditioned charter bus from Redding, lunch, and snacks.

Some scholarships are available to assist with hotel accommodations. Please contact Canon Julie Wakelee by email julie@norcalepiscopal.org

Registration deadline: September 1, 2025

Hotel Info:

Oxford Suites
1967 Hilltop Drive
Redding, CA, 96002-0211
(530) 221-0100
Click HERE to book your hotel room

Room rates:

• King rooms – $135/night
• 2 Queen-Bed rooms – $145/night

The above reservation link will work until 8/19/2025.  After that you will need to call the hotel directly ((530) 221-0100), give them the code “Tule Lake” and if rooms are available, they will honor the above secured pricing!!

Sponsored by the Episcopal Diocese of Northern California