Kou Sasaki broke down and wept Friday as he was reunited with the fishing boat he lost four years ago in a devastating tsunami half a world away.

At a ceremony in the tiny village of Klemtu, B.C. the Japanese fisherman finally got to board the small fishing boat he hadn’t seen since it was swept away in the massive wave generated by the 2011 earthquake just off the Japanese coast.

Sasaki’s boat washed up near the village where Tim McGrady, the general manager of Spirit Bear Adventures, had been using it for his bear watching tours and searching for its owner.

That search ended when Sasaki and his wife visited the lodge and got to drive the boat one last time.

“It was a really moving experience,” McGrady told All Points West host Robyn Burns. “I pointed [the boat] out to him, and he just said, ‘My boat! My boat!'”

“He got really emotional. You could just see him like he was back in Japan, fishing on his boat. He went back to the bow and put his head in his hands and just wept.”

McGrady and other staff at the lodge took Sasaki on a bear watching tour where they were able to catch a glimpse of a rare spirit bear, and then they took in traditional singing and dancing from local hereditary First Nations chiefs.

Sasaki and his wife sang their own song, one written after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, to give thanks to the global community that helped Japan. Then Sasaki gave what McGrady called an “amazing” speech about how his father gave him the boat.

“He said that like the salmon, who come back on a four year cycle, he was going to come back with his father before his father died and go for a ride with his dad.”

McGrady says the image of Sasaki, joyfully waving the traditional fishing flag from his village in Japan, will stay with him long after the visit.

2015 CBC/Radio-Canada