Densho Digital Archive - Tad Kuniyuki Interview (denshovh-ktad-01-0013)

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TI: So let's go, so after the canneries, you said you worked with a logging company? So where was that?

TK: Logging was up in, across from I-90, that highway, across, gee... it's where the Cedar River watershed is.

TI: Okay.

TK: Up by Lake Williams, I think it's called. It's a water, part of the watershed for Seattle, city of Seattle. We were working up there one year.

TI: And what kind of things did you do with the logging company?

TK: We, the logging camp, what we did was put in water lines, put in water lines. See, as they go up the hill, they use steam engines, and the steam engine have to have water. And we would run the pipelines for them, from the rivers up to the steam engines. And then the loggers, the Caucasian loggers would do all the cut, the woodwork and the running of the engine. We just built the railroads and built the roads. They would blast out roads into the mountains to cut the timber. And we built the roads for them. And then, it's a really rough road, all we had to do was cut -- one fellow would get the dynamite. Dynamite the rocks off the road and then we'd lay the tracks for them. And then later on when they're through, we'd take the tracks out and put 'em somewhere else again. It was going into the mountain like that. That was a good job.

TI: And when you say good job, why was that a good job?

TK: Healthy. Rough, but healthy. I liked it.

TI: And then your work crew, who was on your work crew? Was it Japanese?

TK: Yeah, our group was just Japanese, all Japanese, about ten fellows. The Issei and the Nisei mixed together. In the summer, in the wintertime, I don't know. We just, I just worked in the summer because I had to go to school.

TI: And how did you get the logging job? Do you remember how?

TK: I don't know. I don't know how I got it now. Somebody told me about it, I guess. And the canneries were paying so low, for one thing, and we hear the logging camps so it sounded better, so I went there, but it wasn't any better. Because we had to pay for our board.