Densho Digital Archive - Henry Nishi Interview II (denshovh-nhenry

<Begin Segment 24>

RP: You also had, you continued or got into fishing and made quite a few trips up to the Eastern Sierra.

HN: Yeah.

RP: But you also had an involvement with the Boy Scouts and...

HN: Yeah.

RP: ...led a number of trips, hiking to Mount Whitney.

HN: Trip, yeah.

RP: Were you in with Tom Ikkanda on that?

HN: Yeah.

RP: Tell us about that. What was that like to... you return to the Owens Valley where you had been incarcerated...

HN: Well, every year, every summer vacation, the biggest trip for the Boy Scouts was, was the summer vacation trip which is a ten-day trip. And every year we'd go to Lake Maimie, which was just above Lake Mary in Mammoth. That's where they had the group camping. And we did that every year as long as my kids were in Boy Scouts, which was like four or five years. But Tom was devoted to the Boy Scouts. He was scoutmaster for I don't know how many years.

RP: So you hiked Mount Whitney?

HN: We hiked Mount Whitney twice, I think. But he used to take up a group every year, up Whitney.

RP: What was that like?

HN: It was nice. You know, if you're a real hiker, you went... it's not, for a hiker it's not a real big hike. It's, it's like a freeway going up there. [Laughs] We did it the easy way. Come to the halfway mark and camp overnight and the next morning go to the top and come back down. But the hikers, the hikers that are real hikers, they go up and down in one day. You know, from the trailhead which is way up there by, above, up by Lone Pine.

[Interruption]

RP: This is tape three of our continuing interview with Henry Nishi. And Henry, when did you first get interested in fishing in the Eastern Sierra area?

HN: Lake Crowley.

RP: In the late '50s, you said?

HN: Yeah.

RP: Uh-huh. And you still go up there to fish every year?

HN: Yeah.

RP: What is it about the area that really attracts you every year?

HN: Oh, opening day is very exciting. Because it's the opening of the trout season. The quality of fish, the quality is so much better than the other places because the other places... Crowley Lake is, I guess it's a situation where the elevation is... the food content for fish, trout, is ideal. Everything is ideal for trout. Trout grow very rapidly and they're beautiful fish. And as far as, if you like to eat fish, it's much better tasting because of the, I guess the quality of the water, the whatever is in the water. And it's not... generally, when you talk about fishing and these roadside lakes up in Mammoth, they call it "put and take," the Department puts in the trout and you go and fish 'em out. I mean, there's very few natural fish left anymore. But Crowley is different because it's planted in September with a lot of fish and those fish grow. By opening day, they get to be about a pound and over, a pound and a half. And they're almost like getting native fish because they're acclimated and they have a whole season to grow in. Opposed to other lakes where they were just put in the day before or a few days ago, they just came out of the hatchery. So that's what I like about Crowley, is more, it's more fun place to fish.

RP: Have you returned to Manzanar?

HN: Did I what?

RP: Have you returned to Manzanar? Visited the camp?

HN: Yeah, yeah.

RP: And what does it bring up for you in terms of memories or feelings about your time that you were there?

HN: Well, it's a very memorable time because we made good friends there. We had a good time there. I mean, we had, we made it because we didn't have to worry about, about anything except staying there. [Laughs] And we had good friends, we had fun. So it's just, it was really... of course, if you think of it as a place that you were confined to because you had to be... but we didn't make it that way. We were gonna be there, might as well enjoy it.

RP: You turned it into a positive experience.

HN: Yeah, yeah.