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FM: My personal experiences... I went to Alaska as a fourteen-year-old kid and I had no concept of what I was getting into. I went because my cousin, who was older by a year than I, had gone and had a favorable view of what was involved. And I looked forward to getting into something like this that was different; going off to Alaska seemed like a great experience.

AI: Excuse me. Had he said very much about what it was actually like? Had he given you much of a picture of what he experienced up there?

FM: No, no, I don't, at least I don't recall that there was any talk up until the time I became interested in, let's say the spring of 1927, in going to Alaska. I had had never... I don't think I had a concept of what Alaska was like or hadn't heard much about what the experience would be. Nisei had been going, certainly since 1920 or earlier, perhaps, older Nisei than I. And 1927, why, when I went as a fourteen-year-old kid, I was one of the, one of the early Nisei to go to Alaska, it might be said. And yet, there were a fair number of other Nisei already going there, older than I. And so it was not as if I was a totally unique individual. 1927, well, the experience of getting into this kind of thing, especially for a young kid, was quite memorable, I suppose. I can remember fairly distinctly some of the experiences. For one thing, we were, I don't... as I say, I, the arrangement was set up partly because my cousin had already gone to Waterfall and knew the Nagamatsu contractor, partly through my father, who had business connections with the Nagamatsu contractors, and therefore, arrangement was set up for me to go for a rate of eighty dollars per month, and two months with lodging, food, and transportation costs already covered. That was an unusual sum, in my mind, and probably was for a lot of people back in 1928, '7, at least for anyone of my age. Eighty dollars per month, and I can still remember when I got back and got a check of a hundred sixty dollars, wow, I thought it was unbelievable.

The boat which we boated, went on, ultimately came to be Denali, Denali is the name of an area, Indian name for an area in Alaska. But the first boat we went on was some other name. Anyway, they were essentially the same kind of boat, two-hundred foot boat, freighters; small freighters. And they had cabins on the deck level, but underneath they, and there was no second-class, third-class, to my recollection, there was simply some cabins on this freighter plus an area for the cannery workers. The area for the cannery workers was known as the steerage. And the steerage meant the ship's hold with bunks set up so that it would provide for, you know, human transportation to Alaska. And on this two-hundred foot boat there must've been three hundred steerage people, I don't know, a huge number as far as I could tell. When I walked into this dark, dank area with bunks, maybe three, four stacks, stacked bunks, totally surprised me, I remember. And the smell, carry-over of fish fertilizer smell, something awful. You get used to it, but... and, it was the first time I'd seen a bunch of Filipino workers and here, they're bunking next to you and so on, kind of a strange, unusual experience, at least the first time.

It took, as I recall, three days to get from Seattle up to Waterfall on this freighter which would travel at most about twelve knots, mostly around eight knots per hour. [Laughs] You know, it's a very slow boat that goes up through the inside channels between here and Alaska. The food was terrible, the stink was terrible, the whole arrangement was terrible but fourteen-year-old kid, why, you kind of take it in wide-eyed, see that this is the way life goes on for... one of the great things about this experience was to go through the inside channels between here and Alaska. If you've ever gone on a cruise, Alaska cruise and gone through the Seymour Narrows channel, at least for me, it's an unforgettable sight. The... I've seen pictures of Norwegian fjords and this is what it's like, mountains coming straight down into the water and dropping down underneath without any beaches, no white beaches. And the channel is maybe a quarter-mile wide. And on a morning it would take us from Seattle to Campbell River, which is at the head, at this headwater of the Seymour Narrows, twenty-four hours. And we had to wait there in order to have a favorable, favorable tide so that we would not end up on the rocks which is at the inlet to the Narrows. But when you go through the Narrows, and it happens to be a still-water day, it's as if you see mountains mirrored in the water and huge mountains, green mountains on either side all the way up through the Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlotte Island area. It's a spectacular sight. And I shall never forget what I saw, beautiful sight that I saw there. Alaska, too, has many areas of a similar kind, but this, this is, was particularly a special area, between here and Alaska.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.