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I’m pretty sure that’s your boat.The name, I forget the original name on his boat but the name has been changed. I advised him to go to Port Alberni, contact the RCMP, they’ve got a launch there and they’ll take you to Bamfield. I found out later that he did follow my advice but not only did he go himself he also brought Mr. Sigarson along who helped him build the boat to identify the boat. Sure enough, it was their boat. Later on I heard that in the court case, I wasn’t there, but in the court case the judge asked the fellow that took the vessel why he called it June Two.
Is that your wife’s name?He says
No, actually, it’s my birthday.
Let’s stop for a cup of coffee here. There must be a coffee shop in such a small town.We saw a coffee shop there, we stopped, and guess who served us coffee. Kenji and Hiroshi Mukai who we went to school with. They were a little older than I was but one of the Mukai boys was my brother’s classmate and the other one was my older brother’s classmate so it was quite a reunion. They ended up interned in Greenwood? Yeah, and if you went down the next shop was ... The Tufno brothers operated a sheet metal shop and the Tufno boys were Wally and Roy. They built not only fuel tanks for the gillnetters. They built water tanks that you usually put on deck and they built pumps that are probably still in the museum here. They were made out of sheet metal and had a plunger on the bottom and you had a long rod that you pumped up and down to drain your bilges. Later on, when they got high speed engines, they started building smoke decks for the mufflers, also out of sheet metal. The next shop I recall would be the Eastok brothers who built very fine gasoline engines for the gillnet boats. They started off with a five-seven horsepower called a one lunger. They made a ten-fourteen which we called a two-lunger and they finally ended up with a twenty horsepower, three-cylinder engine which was a very fine engine.
Come back Monday. You’ll work next week, too.
Patty, if you want to hang tight I’ll tow you into Steveston because I’ll be finished here in ten, fifteen minutes.He said,
No, thanks Wally.He said,
Your engine’s going to break down and I’ll have to tow you in.
You got experience?The guys with experience he wouldn’t hire but the guys with no experience he’d hire them and say
Well, you come to work for a week and then you’ll get some experience.After the week they’d lay them off. So they had a week of free labor. I recall working in the wheat mills, scooping wheat. We worked a ten hour day and we got nine cents an hour. It was hard work when you’re out in the open field. So the canneries were a good source of income, you know, because even though it was seasonal you worked long hours. You could get overtime but you worked long hours. You could pretty well always find a job in Steveston in one form or another especially if you’re a net-man or something like that. A lot of the earlier fishermen, they’d maybe come to Vancouver and buy a boat but they knew nothing about nets but if you were a net-man you’d always get a job hanging nets for private individuals, not just for the companies. After internment though there must have been lots of boats. Oh, it was criminal what they did. You know, some of these Japanese fishermen had brand new boats built. Some of the other ... They towed them all up to Westminster and the government sold some of those at five dollars apiece. If they at least would have given five dollars to the Japanese but they got nothing. They took their ships, they took ... Their houses weren’t really their houses because, well, they built them. Most of the Japanese houses in the early years were built outside of the dike. That reminds me of another story. I have a few notes on here that I can tell you but, uh,
These are the most honorable people.I said,
Who?Then he told me the whole story. He said that most of the Japanese families in Steveston lived outside the dike and therefore their homes had no legal description and so the corporation of the township of Richmond could not send them a bill for property taxes. The Japanese community, nevertheless, each fall, presumably after the fishermen received their fishing statement from the canners, they presented a check for several thousand dollars on behalf of the Japanese Canadian Association to console in lieu of taxes.