<Begin Segment 8>

TI: How about things like canneries, sort of salmon canneries, things like that, was that a big industry in Ketchikan?

RO: Very big. There was New England, FIP, which was mainly a Chinese crew. You think of, I don't know, they must've had a special connection with somebody down here, but they were Chinese fellows. And then there was Ward's Cove. That was in Ketchikan. But there was so many, there's several canneries outside of Ketchikan.

TI: So describe to me when, 'cause I've heard lots of stories of Seattleites, and in the summertime a really good summer job was to go work in salmon canneries. So I'm guessing from your perspective you see this large influx of workers in the summer, so kind of describe that. You mentioned one was mostly Chinese. Was there one that a lot of Japanese came up during the summer?

RO: Well, the other ones were, I think, primarily Japanese.

TI: Oh, the other ones.

RO: (Yes). There was this one Chinese cannery, but I met a lot of Seattle people up there. When we were fourteen and fifteen, then Ben Kimura, one of our neighbors, and myself were hired to fly to Waterfall. That's the name of the cannery. That was a more advanced cannery in the whole Alaska, I think, and they had so much fish that they came and they recruited anybody. Fourteen or fifteen, imagine that. But that's where I met a lot of the Seattleites.

TI: So I'm curious, your first, kind of your first impressions of Seattle Japanese and Japanese Americans who were working in Alaska, what did you think of them?

RO: Nothing special. I used to stay, bunk with a person called Rhino Nakamura. I don't know if you've ever heard of him.

TI: I heard the nickname.

RO: Yeah, his name was George actually, but he was a football player, but he was real good to me. We used to all eat in a communal mess hall, like camp sort of. But I always remember the fact that when the season finished, there was a few of us that stayed on to clean everything up, but that was when we really got to eat well. [Laughs]

TI: Why? Was the food different, or just more of it?

RO: More of it. Yeah, that was a good cannery I met. All, they're a lot older, the boys were, but it's so many names that I still hear in this town.

TI: But I also heard complaints that they got tired of eating salmon, though. [Laughs] I mean, that's all they ate for weeks and weeks of salmon and salmon, and they were just looking for, like, vegetables and different things to eat.

RO: [Laughs] I hated salmon when I was in Alaska.

TI: [Laughs] I mean, I've interviewed people to this day that they still won't eat salmon. They just had so much of it.

RO: Yeah.

TI: But that they would also bring home boxes of cans.

RO: Exactly. I think the people that came from, like Seattle, they ate a lot of that. But, like you say, the wages were excellent. In two weeks while we're there, Ben Kimura and I made over two hundred dollars in those days. But the hours were very long. And as I say, that's where all the Niseis got their college education (money). It's great.

TI: (Yes). Over and over again I hear that, that they could work one summer and that'll pay for all their tuition, books, living expenses.

RO: That's right.

TI: And so it was very competitive to get there.

RO: Sure.

TI: I mean, you hear it, there were essentially, I can't remember the exact name, but kind of the bosses who'd decide, dispatchers.

RO: Nagamatsu.

TI: Yeah, they call 'em dispatchers, I guess. They would be the ones who would decide who would get the jobs and then when they're in Alaska which jobs they would get, because there was a hierarchy in terms of what jobs you would get.

RO: You know, one thing about the canneries, the Caucasian employees were, say, engineers and whatever. They ate better, but they were segregated from us. They had their own bunkhouse.

TI: And so the whites got better jobs in the canneries, the best jobs, and then what were some of the other jobs people got in canneries?

RO: Well, labelers. I used to run a machine that opened the cans up, and there's people that are actually doing the cleaning of the fish, putting it in the cans. But it's like you say, that's why I'm sure a lot of them brought salmon. But you know, the delicacies that occur now, like salmon eggs and such, that wasn't even wanted in those days. (Would) be tossed out.

TI: Yeah, so all these things that are probably the most expensive things now, the salmon roe, the eggs, roe, were all thrown away.

RO: Yes. It was just thrown in the bay below.

TI: How about things like kazunoko, the --

RO: Exactly.

TI: Were those things harvested?

RO: The Native Americans used to sort of harvest that, and it used to come on kelp. It came on cedar branches too, but the kelp was much, was classified as good. I still see it down here.

TI: Now, I'm curious, did the Japanese, maybe the older ones, did they ever recognize that the salmon eggs were good to eat? Did they ever kind of like mix it up with shoyu or anything and do something with it?

RO: Not that I know.

TI: Okay. Yeah, probably you'd have to kind of get it really fresh and it'd probably hard to do something.

RO: Well, it's like that or seaweed. Alaskan seaweed is good, but it's, nowadays it's pretty expensive. But the Natives used to harvest it.

TI: So that was part of their food culture, seaweed and...

RO: Exactly. Berries.

TI: Similar to the Japanese in some of those, those different things.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.