The Dr. Inazo Nitobe Memorial Garden and Pemberton Memorial Chapel, at the Royal Jubilee Hospital were funded and built  through volunteer effort. The Japanese garden was built as a tribute to the Japanese statesman and diplomat, Inazo Nitobe, who passed away at this hospital in 1933 while transiting back to Japan from Banff AB where he was attending an international conference. He was an Under-Secretary General of the League of Nations, the precursor to the modern-day United Nations. The garden design was undertaken at a time when the hospital was making major renovations, a local architect, Paul Merrick supervised the design of the Pemberton Chapel, a heritage structure and a small piece of land within the renovated hospital grounds was set aside as a meditation garden incorporating many aspects of a traditional Japanese garden, with views from within the site and from within the adjacent hospital buildings.