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TI: Now, when did the Japanese, or when did the oyster seeds from Japan, when did those start coming into Willapa Bay?

GN: Early '30s, or maybe end of 1929, '28, somewhere in there. But mainly in the '30s. When I came here in 1939, it was the early part of importing seeds from Japan.

TI: And when they first came, how well did the Japanese oysters do?

GN: Oh, they just grew like mad. They used to grow so fast, and then they spawned, and the spats took off and plastered the whole bay, really. It was getting away from them. It used to grow so fast that by the next season it'd be too big.

TI: Oh, so they couldn't harvest them fast enough.

GN: Yeah, they couldn't harvest fast enough.

TI: And so did... once that happened, once they came, did all the oyster farms start doing the Japanese seeds, too?

GN: Yes. Because that was the cheapest way to control it. You can plant... they don't grow wherever they felt like it, you had it on the farm.

TI: Now with the Japanese oysters, were they farmed or harvested differently than the older ones?

GN: The native?

TI: Yeah, the native.

GN: The native was, they had no way of getting seeds, get the seeds from those either. But there was no reason why they couldn't have. The Pacific, the Japanese seeds grew and took over the bay more rapidly, and the native oysters started to disappear.

TI: So that was 1930s, so this was eighty, ninety years later. Do they still grow the Pacifics out in Willapa Bay, or is it now different? What kind of oysters...

GN: You can still grow 'em, but there's very little of it.

TI: So what has taken over? What kind of oysters are out there now?

GN: These are Miyagi oysters from northern Japan.

TI: Okay, so still Japanese, but just a different type.

GN: No, Sendai. This is the original ones they brought in. They brought some in from Hiroshima and southern Japan, Kumamotos and those, they didn't do that well.

TI: And so is it because of the, because the bay is sort of, what's the right word? Sort of unique in certain ways that only a certain type of oysters grow well?

GN: The mixture of, probably the salinity of the bay here is about like Japan's.

TI: Like the Sendai area?

GN: Yeah, Sendai.

TI: So it's just finding all that. So when you came down in the late, like 1939, describe what kind of work you did. What would you do?

GN: Well, you'd buy seeds from Japan, and every spring they'd come in, you'd plant 'em and put 'em on your acreage, then the following summer you'd go out and break the, they grow in big clusters, so you break 'em up and scatter 'em around and put 'em on a bed that fattens up. You have what you call a nursery bed, seed bed, and a harvest bed. So you'd move 'em around. And then in the summer, winter, we're picking 'em and bringing 'em into the canneries.

TI: And when you say spread them around, I mean, is this when the tide goes out, you can do that?

GN: Yeah. When the tide goes out, you go out there and scatter 'em around so they're not all in one great big bunch. You try to evenly space it all over so they're not crowded.

TI: And then when you harvest, describe the harvesting. What was that like?

GN: Just before the tide dropped down, you spot your scow in a convenient spot. And when the tide goes down, you put 'em bushel baskets and bring it to your scow and dump it. And the tide usually runs about four hours or so. Four hours' time, you're expected to fill that scow up.

TI: Okay, so it's kind of a race against the tide.

GN: Yeah. You work hard during that four hours. Then the tide comes in and you go back and go to the bunkhouse and have your supper. Next morning it'll be high water, so you tie the scows together and bring it into the canneries to be shucked.

TI: Now, I... so I've interviewed sort of truck farm people, or land farming. So there there's a definite season when they can harvest. Like strawberries would be, like, in June that they do that. So for oysters, when is the harvest season?

GN: It used to be from the months with the Rs. Have you heard of it?

TI: Yeah, I know there was one letter that... so it's R.

GN: Months with R. So September through March, April.

TI: April.

GN: Yeah. During the summer...

TI: Oh, so May, June, July, August, those four months would not be as good?

GN: Yeah, that's right.

TI: So what happens, those are kind of the seeding times?

GN: Those are the times you're taking care of them and transplanting them to a good bed and that kind of work. Only thing you're not doing was we didn't open the oysters during the summer months.

TI: So right now, this is, we're interviewing April 30th, so this is the end of April, so May starts... so is this like the end of the season?

GN: This used to be the end of the harvesting season. But it's changed completely now. Now you have oysters that don't get spawny. Since you're doing the hatchery, you can raise oysters that don't spawn, become spawny.

TI: So then they can harvest year-round then.

GN: So now you're getting to the point where you're spending money in the hatcheries and raising oysters as you can harvest in the summer.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2014 Densho. All Rights Reserved.