While several people may have visited Lethbridge’s Japanese gardens, few know how lucky our southern Alberta community is to have such a significant cultural site.

Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden is one of 300 Japanese Gardens in North America, but very few of those are located in southern Alberta.

“To have one here is very special. Lethbridge has a large population of Japanese people, it has the third largest Nisei population in Canada. It’s about educating the public on Japanese and Japanese-Canadian culture while having one of the most unique and beautiful gardens in Canada,” explained Michelle Day, executive director for the garden.

The garden hosts the Winter Lights Festival between December and February. According to Day, lighting gardens is a tradition in Japanese cities.

The lights start going up in early October, and there’s approximately 115,000 lights around the garden this year with plans to keep going. This year there were about 15,000 people coming through to see the garden in the winter months.

People from all over the city and outside have come through to see the lights, and according to George Takashima the centre does a great job in staying authentic.

“[It’s] very interesting and very good. Again, lights are something found in the Japanese Gardens in Japan, so it again adds to the authenticity of the gardens.”

Another feature that Takashima mentioned that makes Nikka Yuko authentic is the lack of flowers in the garden.

On Feb. 2, the garden will host a celebration called Setsubun, which is another Japanese tradition. The seasonal change between winter and spring is celebrated with hopes to banish bad omens and attract good luck.

Throughout the whole year the garden typically sees around 40,000 people come through to view the garden.