Densho Digital Archive - John Tomita Interview (denshovh-tjohn

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RP: John, you also, also worked with the Bureau of Reclamation on one, on a project?

JT: Oh, yes.

RP: What was that?

JT: That, see, the Bureau of Reclamation was reclaiming that sort of a swamp land there on Tule Lake. See, the Lost River from the, on the Oregon side goes through the mountain and comes on the California side. And, and on the California side it's just, that basin there, it was really a big basin. And Bureau of Reclamation wanted to start reclaiming that land. And they wanted to use us to... so, I said, "Oh that was, that was interesting." It was really interesting job. We, they get us a flat boat. We set one up and the small flat boat, the guys chain it and this, with, every mile they want to, each section of the land... so, what they do, we put the, you know you just stick it in the ground like that. It's all mud so it just sunk right... but you can't walk on there. It was hard, there was only about a foot of water but it's soft. It's muddy. And, so we just stake. So, we, we marked that half a mile, quarter mile, half a mile, and three quarter, and then mile. Then we flagged the mile section and then the drag line there on the barge too, was, you know what the drag lines is? They dig the... so, what they do is they drag a, they dig here and makes a bank, dig here and make the bank. And so we got the stake all in there so they follow the stake and when they finish one section then they, the drag line will carry the small barge and put 'em in front and they get on that. And they start digging again. And, but it's a slow process. But each section of land, 640 acres, and then they, so they already dug a ditch here and then they put a ditch in the middle so that they could... and then they set up a pump. After it dries up, they set up a pump and they pump the water out. And then after we, they pump the water out, then they, you had an airplane and they sow the barley seed from the air. They just dump it from the air and by, by fall the ground dried up and the barley dried up too and then the harvester comes in and harvests the barley. And then after they harvest the barley then our farmers get in and they disk the dirt and they start planting vegetables. And then winter time the hunter come and they shoot the ducks and geese down. We chase 'em. Before dogs get there we take the duck out. [Laughs]

KP: So the hunters would shoot the geese.

JT: Huh?

KP: The hunters would shoot the geese.

JT: Yeah. They would shoot 'em from the outside and they sent the dog in to get the, the bird. But before the dog gets there we get it and...

KP: What did you do with the dogs?

JT: The dogs looking for it, duck, and we just load up whatever we want and head home. [Laughs] Yeah, and I don't know how many thousand acres we reclaimed like that.

KP: Thousands of acres.

JT: Yeah, thousands.

KP: What, do you remember what years that job, that you did that? Was that throughout the whole time you were at Tule Lake?

JT: Yeah. Well, no, not quite. But, we did it for quite a while. I don't know how many lands... because they never show us the, the plan of the whatchamacallit. All they tell us is to run it down. So, we did what we... so that was the Bureau of Reclamation. I, actually we could have done more jobs for Bureau of Reclamation but the head they want us to, that's all that we were allowed to do. Yeah, but oh yeah, we, beside that, we made the hog farm. We, oh, what the, what do you call that farming? You know you farm with liquid, not with soil, just liquid.

KP: Hydroponics?

JT: Hydroponic.

KP: You made one of those?

JT: Yeah. There was a guy, guy from Cal Aggie, he said there's, there's a stream come around the Castle Rock, the back part someplace. Anyway, he said he found a stream that he... so, went to check it and so I forgot this kids' name. We, I mean, we didn't have enough lumbers, but there's planks, we used plank as a... anyway, and the screens on top and, and made the plank for one wall. And then thing is, gotta find the chemical to feed, feed the thing. So we, we went to the farming and bribed some guys to get some of the... and we had this, this guy from Cal Tech, he was a smart guy. He tested which, what we have to, how much we have to put in. And well, we had a pumpkin and tomatoes and... yeah, it was about, it was about a, gee pretty, hundred yards, about a hundred yard. We had that thing, we had the stream there and, yeah we had the hydroponic farming goin'.

KP: So you diverted this stream into the hydroponic garden?

JT: Huh?

KP: So you diverted this stream into the hydroponic garden?

JT: Yeah.

KP: Oh, okay.

JT: Yeah, right. I can't remember. It was just a short while but we, I thought it was an interesting experiment to try.

KP: So what, what other projects did you work on in Tule Lake?

JT: Well, we tried to locate the cemetery. And it, they, they want us to locate an airfield. They, they thought some of the army guys were gonna come fly in and I had to find a flat area, enough that they could grade it to, to make a, a landing zone. So, I had to, around the camp I have to find a sort of flat area to...

KP: Where, did you find one?

JT: No. Actually, we, we couldn't find enough, what you call flat area. But, we did... what do you call that surveying? Anyway, we made a map of that surrounding area. But there was not enough flat area. But, spent a lot of time there. Yeah, that's the first time I saw so many rattlesnake out there. God. Geez. So, every time... we had to, our crew have to watch out for rattlesnakes because there were so many out there. I didn't realize there were so many out there.