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This oral history is from an interview conducted by the Oral History cluster of the Landscapes of Injustice project.
No, Wilfred, that’s okay.He goes,
We know you’re going through some long days, you know, in the building of your boat.And he goes,
We know that it just was started up.And he goes,
Things like that happen with a brand new application, new boat.And he goes,
No, you don’t have to pay, Wilfred.This is something I’ll always remember. He goes,
Wilfred, your dad did a good job.He was paying me a compliment in his own way. It’s something I’ll remember forever to have that respect for each other where, you know, that he felt that way about for the fact that he didn’t hold any animosity or hard feelings toward me. I went and looked at his repair job and, as usual, it was a masterful job. That’s one of my more fonder memories of being around them. That would be about it for the Atagis at the present time, I think. Yeah. I used to, I still do, I have a passion for hunting. I would go across to Shady Island at Atagi's there for night flight and do my hunting there some days for ducks, pheasants as well on the island. Those were a lot different times. It’s closed now. You can’t even go there. In the day there. Yeah, can you stop for a moment?
Kevin you’re going to have to jump on there. It’s the only way Ray will get off of there. I’m worried about him having a heart attack or something.Once he understood what we were going to do he took my hand and I pulled him on my boat. Kevin got on board and the bow-cleat is underwater so he’s trying to get a towline onto that and we drifted apart. I realized Kevin doesn’t have a lifejacket on so I went and got one, came back out with it, and I called to him. When he’d seen me with a lifejacket he had a bit of panic set in. He’d become very concerned so I threw the lifejacket to him. It took him a bit to get it zipped up. I called to him, I go
Calm down. Get it zipped up.He got the towline on. We started towing and the tide is building in its velocity and I had a fairly powerful engine and I’m worrying about ripping the bow-cleat right off of Ray’s boat.
Ray, I don’t want to give it full power here. I’m worried about ripping that bow tow post off.I could see we were getting swept down, what we call twelve-can. I said,
You know, Ray, we’ve got a problem here.
Just give ithe said. So I bump my power up. Bill Atagi came along, threw a line to my deckhand who tied it onto the bow of my boat and then Bill was towing as well as myself. Low and behold the South Sea went around, hit twelve-can, and the current was so strong literally the whole can disappeared. The boat, can, everything just disappeared for quite a while. The top of the can came up bobbing away there and I’ll always remember Ray, he never said a word the whole time. When the boat wrapped around the can-way and disappeared all he said was
God damn.The other thing I can remember, we were trying to get power there and Bill Atagi’s tow rope broke and I’m looking at him because we’re in alignment and it looked like the tow rope had hit him and he got knocked down. So now I’m worried. I’m connected to the South Sea and I didn’t know if Bill was knocked out or what the deal was. He did get up. His hat was crooked, his glasses were crooked, but he waved that he was alright. So there’s nothing more I could do. I let go of the line. Ray got onto Bill’s boat and that was the beginning of a new style of fishing. Lyle Sparrel called me and he said
There’s somebody making a flyer along the jetty down at the mouth. You better come and lookhe says. Normally we would have been going in at that stage of the tide. What this individual is doing sitting more or less parallel to the jetty and scraping fish off of there and it’s quite a dangerous location to be doing that. So we fished there and this isn’t our very first time at it and fished until closing time. I go in and I deliver and I come in to Atagi's to tie up. I didn’t see Ray there. He was standing there and he’s in grief. He built that boat. It meant a lot to him to lose that. It really did. He had aspirations to refloat it and it ended up ... They got it off the can buoy and it ended up, same thing again, I wasn’t there but it was a current issue. They ended up losing it at the mouth of the Fraser and he went back again and he couldn’t locate it. It must’ve broken up but I’ll go back to when I was tying up. On the day of it initially happening I tie up mine. I come in for a landing, I haven’t even got a line on it yet, Ray walked over and he put a case of beer and a bottle of crown royal in the window and he goes
Thank you, Wilfred.And he walked away. It was a gesture that was, uh, significant for me because I knew where he was and his mindset and the fact that he would just remember that was significant to make that gesture to me. So you, um, who was Ray? Ray Hamata? Yeah, you mentioned he was a fisher. Do you know his background story? Well, his son’s still fishing. His name is Sugar. I don’t know his real name even. He’s always been called Sugar. He would have been an interned individual. Sugar’s a bit older than me. It’s conceivable that he could have been interned. I don’t know but Ray would have been for sure; Ray Hamata. Sugar’s boat name is Magic Maker. Beyond that I don’t know a lot of history. We were in each other’s lives every day at Atagi boatyard, well, Pacific Coast Camp but as far as socializing, we didn’t. You know, maybe lunch together but that would be it. Yeah. Another one comes to mind, may I? There was a restaurant at Paramount there in Steveston and Pearl ran that restaurant. I have a few stories about her but we walked in there one day with my dad and myself for coffee in the beginning of the day.
Roy, you’re supposed to be dead.My dad said
Not the last time I looked.What it was is they were all commiserating about the fact that Roy E. Wilson ... My dad’s name was Roy Earl Wilson, he signed his name with his middle initial because there were problems in the fishing industry. He cautioned me to always put my middle initial in because there’s other Wilsons. There is a Wilfred Wilson in camp wherever and there was another Roy Wilson on the coast. So anyway they had this newspaper out and a Roy E. Wilson had been killed in a hunting accident. So when we walked in the door that was the reason for the silence. It was just amazing. So, yeah, that’s um, but Pearl was a fixture in the Steveston area there for quite a while. Her hearing was phenomenal. You could have fifty guys in there for lunch and there were two of them, a cook and her. Her hearing was so good when she went by you’d let her know what you wanted. She would hear you. I had a friend of mine that fished for a few years, an uncle of mine, I’d take him there for breakfast. I’d tell Grant, I go,
You have to be quick. You place your order, Pearl will hear you.So as she’s going by he
Grant, you just blurt out what you want.She goes by again and Grant muttered under his breath something about her and Pearl was already at the entrance to the kitchen. She stopped and it wasn’t the pleasantry that he uttered and she heard him. She turned and gave him this glare and I go
Grant, you’re going to be lucky if you get served.Eventually, she served us. While we were sitting and eventually she said to Grant and us
What did you want?She stopped. So this is our kind of gathering place for fishermen, at Pearl’s. One more thing about her. I’d go in one day late. She would shut down at three o’clock. I’d go in at two thirty and I’d say
Pearl ...I was young and I was eating a lot and I was going in there for breakfast and I started out where I’d say
I want an extra egg.And then the next time
I want extra bacon.This kept building in my portions and then one day I walk in and she goes
Wilfred, you just get double of everythingshe says. The reason I mention going in there in the afternoon, I go in one day and the board is down which means the pre-cooked luncheons are gone. I say
I’ll have a roast beef sandwich, Pearl. Please.She goes
No, you won’t, Will.She came out with this huge mound of food and it was what was left over from the lunch menu. That was my treat over the years. I would go in late and she would, because I got to know her over a lifetime, she was very generous with me for my portions, being a young lad growing up with a big appetite. I can walk in she’ll go
Sorry, we’re sold out today. You’re out of luck. You’re going to have to have that roast beef sandwich.She was always there for me for quite a few decades kind of thing. That’s my last one about Pearl. Do you know Pearl’s story? Do you know her ... No, just that she was ... No, sorry. I don’t. Other than just I see her on a daily, well, not a daily basis but quite regularly. After she retired I ran into her at Lansdowne Shopping Mall and she was so out of character. I’d seen her for decades in that white smock that she had. She’d come up and said hi to me and I was utterly thrown. I didn’t recognize her without her white smock on. So we had a brief little chat at that time but, no, I’m sorry, I don’t know anything more of her other than she was very efficient in running her restaurant there. Do you know her background of where her family would have come from? No, no. Some of the older guys may ... Was she of European, or Asian, or ... I would say she would have been of European descent. Yeah. Okay. I think that’s about it for now unless something else comes to mind. Are there any stories that you remember your father telling you of the Japanese community?
I want you to sell my boat. I’m going overseas.They said
Nope, we’ll get you classified as essential to the war effort. You bring your books from the previous five years fishing, take that into the recruiting station, and we’ll have the paperwork processed for you to be classified as essential.From that, my dad had to fish twelve months of the year and it actually was lucrative for him because, at that time, he was fishing dogfish in the winter months and vitamin E was derived from the livers and was essential for the men overseas to have those vitamins. The boats were pretty small in the day and they weren’t the best for comfort. My dad ended up developing rheumatoid arthritis and that laid him out for two years. In my own way I think my dad did pay a price for doing the work because he wouldn’t have been fishing as hard as he was where he had to fish twelve months of the year. So, um, yeah. Something else had come to mind, too, but it’s gone now during that story. Anyway, yeah. So you mentioned your father was very close knit to the fishing community. Was what, sorry? He was very connected to the fishing community. Yeah, we still are a pretty tight knit group on land. There’s a saying
When the lines are untied the friendships cease and the friendships don’t commence again until the lines are tied up again.There’s some very aggressive guys and that’s where that came from. My grandfather was fishing for BC Packers and this is prior to 1929 because there was another company, Nelson Brothers I believe it was, was trying to lure my grandfather away. BC Packers caught drift of that and they offered him ten acres on Westham Island with three houses on it for $250 with the commitment that he would fish for them for the rest of his life and on a handshake he did. He fished for them his entire life. On a significant note, I did not know this, but they kept records of production and my grandfather had a career lifetime production record that got broken by another Wilson by the name of Fred and his son told me that it’s over ten years ago now that Fred broke grandpa’s record but he goes
Your grandfather’s record will always stand because a bulk of that was by hand from the sail rowing days whereas my dad’s, the bulk of it was from engines and a drum.So he said,
You know, your grandpa’s record will stay intact. Now Fred has established another one in the fishing industry.So, yeah, grandpa, like I said, on a handshake. I like that aspect of it because in today’s world there’s not much commerce done with a handshake but it was and he did honor that. So, earlier, you did mention that your father was against the interning of different Japanese ... Yeah, because when you’re around those men throughout one’s life you develop a respect. He didn’t feel that they were going to be a threat and Canada certainly did think that so the effort they went through to establish themselves in the community, everything was taken away, literally everything.
We’re going to get that fish. We’re going to pick up ...I’m using a sockeye net which is very fine mesh and it’s not designed to hold spring salmon. It appeared to be tiring out and, like I said, I’d seen it three times and so I had a rather long gaff hook on top of the cabin. I got it down, I sharpened it up. I said,
When we pick here we’re going to open the door up for somebody else to take our spot and that’s not what we desire here so we’re going to see where the lineup is above us, we’ll wait until they’re not locals and they’re not as entirely knowledgeable about the opportunity.When I open the door up somebody could take this spot from me. So when there is four guys that came in the lineup that I knew weren’t all that efficient I said,
Okay, we’re going to go and we’re going to go fast here now and we’re going to get that fish.It was relatively close to the boat and I had quite a few sockeye, say fifty or sixty to remove first, get to the spot where the spring was and it was gone. Set back out again. Nobody got my set and Ozzy was this man’s name that was with me and he goes
Wilfred, we’ve had sets with over five, six hundred sockeyeand he goes
I can’t believe how excited you got over one fish.I go,
Ozzy, that just wasn’t any fish. That was probably the biggest fish of my career.I said,
That thing may have pushed a hundred pounds, eighty plus for sure.That was something that I was hoping to get but he goes
Perhaps it’ll make it to spawn here again. So it’s not a total loss.Yeah, it was a thrill to see it. It really was. So that was a, um, was that a regular fishing spot for a lot of different groups? Yes, it’s highly sought after and called the Glory Hole for a reason. There was some awful big production coming out of there. That bar at the mouth of the Fraser River, I’ve seen this in books, it’s actually called Wilson bar. It’s Kennedy Island bar on the chart but there used to be so many of us there that they called it Wilson bar. An individual showed me that in a navigational book. There was something else in the courier about it, it was, um, hm, I can’t recall there.
Go ahead.There’s no fish in there. I had a few on the floor and I’m picking up my first set.
How many have you got?I said,
I don’t know. I got fifty, sixty fish.He goes,
It’s pretty early in the opening.What it was was they were checking to make sure that we weren’t poaching ahead of time is what it was. So he thought they were going to find fish in the hatch that would have been from before the opening. So he was interrupting my work so I started removing fish. I had to tow my net to miss the Glory Hole off. He divulges that they were suspect that we were poaching. I go,
Look around here. Who do you see here? There are very few guys here. This is a dangerous part of the tide and you’re interfering with my work.He goes,
You’ve got an awful lot of fish so early in the opening.I go,
Look at me. I’m pouring in sweat here. You think there’s a reason for this?I go,
I’m in hustle mode here. I have to get out of here and you’re interfering. Look at my net.As I’m towing and I’ve got a lot of it elevated out of the water and there’s fish throughout it. I go,
Look at that. There’s a reason why we’re getting production here. This is a very good spot. Let me repeat myself. You’re interfering here.So he jumped back into the zode and he goes, we’ve now put this to rest in my mind, and he goes
We have no more concern about your guys’ production. We won’t bother you anymore.That’s what he said, right. In a way it was a backhanded compliment is what they were giving us kind of thing, right? Yeah. And was this, um, RCMP or conservation type ... DFO enforcement. Department of Fisheries and Oceans enforcement guys. So they got the most brass in the DFO. They were doing their job. They look at the tallies on the weekend and they see who’s been most productive. Questions get asked why that is so they had to go and try to verify for their own peace of mind, I guess, what was what and that. Then again, it’s a very productive spot and, I think at that time, there was only four or five of us fishing there. Sometimes there can be a lot of guys but in that particular circumstance there wasn’t because of the currents at that time. But I really should be ... I was just going to ask quickly, how long has the DFO been in service? Is it only the last thirty years or has it been in service for sixty or seventy? No, all my career and my dad’s as well. It’s been for generations. Another one comes to mind. Mouth of the Fraser River there’s a killer whale we call Blackfish. When they go by they’d scare the salmon into the shallows. It was early in the year. Spring salmon only present. The fish go up onto the sand boards of the Fraser so that’s common knowledge so the guys will run into the shallows to set their net. I’m fishing with my dad at the time and we got an immense amount of crabs. Over a hundred crabs. We’re in very shallow water and you can only be there for so long. So we’re moving these crabs and along comes this DFO personnel checking for licenses and my dad’s wallet had receipts and licenses from years past. He hadn’t a habit of emptying it very often. They had boarded to ask for our fishing licenses. Dad couldn’t find his. He found three previous years’ personal fishing licenses but he couldn’t find the present year. I was thirteen. The DFO guy asked me for mine. I said,
Well, I’m not of age and I’m not sixteen yet. I don’t need a personal fishing license.So meanwhile I kept working and my dad kept looking. He had all this paper on the side looking for the present year’s license. Then the DFO guy asked me
Well, let me see your driver’s license.I said,
Well, I told you, I’m not sixteen.So I kept working there and all this and it was quite a while before my dad found his license, produces it. This fellow leaves and the next boat he goes to we knew him, Terry Bennett, and he says to him, he goes
You see that boat over there. There’s two men on there. One man with no license, he does all the work, the guy with the license does no work.