Past Events

On the 30th of November 2018

Soga Elementary school in Ehime (Japan) and an elementary school in Fanano (Italy)

A conference call between Japan and Italy will be held in honour of the relationship between Jujiro Wada and Felix Pedro. The conference call will be based from Soga Elementary school in Ehime (Japan) and an elementary school in Fanano (Italy). Although these schools had not been built yet in Wada and Pedros Era, they are in their respective home towns.

The Cultural exchange’s focus

The Cultural exchange’s focus is to expand on the relationship Wada and Pedro formed during the gold rush at Tanana river in Fairbanks, Alaska. The students will be encouraged to share their cultures and difference of opinions with one other,  strengthening the bond between our two countries.

Ueoka (front)

Mikio Ueoka, a representative of JWMA, commented that  “As a preparation for that, on 16th October , we introduced Jujiro Wada, Felix Pedro, and Fanano to the Soga elementary school students at the gymnasiums.  And,Ms.Setsuko Kaida, director of Mikan Ichiza, who wrote about Jujiro in the moral textbook talked about Jujiro Wada. Children introduced City of Matsuyama and the Soga school and Noriko Kan translated it.

Children of the Soga elementary school and Fanano elementary school will study their hometown and their school and Pedro and Jujiro. 

By doing so, they will love and be proud of their town where they lives and will know each other ‘s culture and life. By conducting this exchange class, the Jujiro Wada Memorial Association will promote international exchanges by removing the walls of the nation through the great local people Pedro and Jujiro.”

The Event that lead to this cultural exchnge event.

In 1903, Jujiro Wada together with Italian immigrant Felix Pedro in the Tanana plain uncovered the gold mine. This is “Tanana Stampede” in Alaska Pioneering History.Ms. Noriko Kan and Mikio Ueoka met with Pedro’s researcher Massimo Turchi in Pedro’s home Fanano in September, 2017, and also participated in the symposium. At that time, it was suggested that Mayor of Fanano want to International exchange with Jujiro Wada`s hometown elementary School and Pedro’s hometown elementary School.  So, in order to realize that promise, the Fanano elementary school and the Soga elementary school in Hinode town,Matsuyama city where Jujiro was raised, will be scheduled exchange lesson on November 30 , while using pictures and photos through Skype.

News

 

https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy8zOWE1NDkzYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw/episode/NzNhZWM3MjAtZjdhYS00MWNiLWEyMjItMzE0NDk1YWJmZGM5?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahgKEwiQrqX1jbr_AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQqwE

https://anchor.fm/s/39a5493c/podcast/rss

Columns

H.H. Norwood, born in Berwick, Nova Scotia was captain of the Arctic whaler Balaena. He taught Jujiro Wada nautical skills and navigation. He retired early from whaling and had health issues, causing him to move back to Nova Scotia, but in later years he participated in the Klondike gold rush as an inspector of mines for the Canadian government. E.T Barnette, the first mayor of Fairbanks, sent Jujiro Wada over to Dawson City, where he told Norwood of the gold strike by Felix Pedro in the Tanana plain. A local newspaper article mentioned it and this caused the Tanana stampede.  

Columns

In 1892, when Jujiro Wada first reached the Arctic, he saw the Northern Light for the first time on his life. One second he thought it was a rainbow, but then it changed color, kept moving, shaped difficult forms. One of his fellow whalers, an Eskimo, told him it comes closer by whistling a tune with your mouth. As Jujiro Wada spent an exceptional amount of time in outdoor activities under the open sky in the Yukon and Alaska, the biography on Wada by author Y. Tani is titled “The samurai who chased the aurora”.

About Wada`s sailing: read further at 1907年10月へのリンク ,

About Wada`s hunting: read further at 1895年へのリンク,

About Wada`s mushing: 1892年へのリンク

Ancient Inuit legends about Northern light, often are related with the afterlife. Northern Light appears when a soul leaves this world and rises up to heaven. It is said to be a path which is made clear by lights shining on it. In Greenland people also tell a legend that the spirits are playing soccer using a walrus skull for a ball. This then causes the Northern Light.

For more details on Wada`s travel see Life History

Columns

from http://cadzowhistory.org/daniel-cadzow-yukon-frontiersman/

In 1907 Wada moved from Dawson to Herschel Island, with 6 dogs and a dog sled. The route brought Wada also to Rampart House. This was an old trading post run by independent trader Daniel Cadzow. The small settlement located at the Yukon-Alaska border, was a crossroad of people of different ways of life. After a winter on Herschel Island, Wada made a 1,600 mile solitary trip back to Dawson by dog sled. During grouse hunting the sun and snow blinded his eyes. When Wada arrived at Rampart House, his eyes were dripping wet from snow-blindness, which Cadzow mistook for tears of joy for a safe arrival, and Cadzow started to weep as well.

News

In 1907 Jujiro Wada traveled from Dawson to Herschel Island, and at Porcupine River his guide left him,
insisting Wada easily travel alone. During the last leg of his solitary travel, Wada bore witness of an
Eskimo struggling for his life with a polar bear, after his rifle failed.

In the earlier days of Yukon and Alaska, when pioneers like Wada explored the area,
among other animals, bears also were still hunted for their fur. We know from reports
that a succesful bear hunt still formed a risky thing to try.

Out in the field, skin and flesh are largely seperated,
but to save time, its skull often is still attached. The bear skin can weigh 200 kg.
Just walking with such a load is very tiresome, but then the landscape doesn`t make it easier.
Bears are most easy to track during fall, as they crowd around salmon grounds, or in spring when
snow makes place for fresh green sprouts. Most animals gather in the same areas where beavers build their structures.
When carrying your bear skin past these salmon grounds, you have to cross beaver ponds, and a lot of wet landscapes.
Beaver ponds sometimes have very deep spots, and when you loose your balance, the bear skin on your back
then pulls you down. In spring melting snow creates a lot of fresh creeks. To keep your cloths dry,
it`s best to jump over them, but carrying a bear skin makes jumping completely out of the question.
Men hunting bears are known to put on thigh-high boots, but even that doesn`t prevent them for getting soaking wet.
The bear meat is left where it was, and coyotes and birds will take care it disappears within 1 day.

Family Tree

Discovering My Japanese Heritage, Harry Michael O’Hare Jr. Part 2

Go back to Part 1

-teller- Michael O’Hare-

The company my dad worked for in the early sixties would send him from time to time to the Los Angeles area for business. My dad had a pilot’s license and would fly the company plane there. He always visited Uncle Harry on those trips and we, (my brother and sisters and I), enjoyed the stories he told us about his visits with his brother.

Uncle Harry at the family reunion 1985. His daughter Cynthia is directly behind him. You can see part of her face.
Uncle Harry at the family reunion 1985. His daughter Cynthia is directly behind him. You can see part of her face.


When they lived in San Jose they had a big old house. I have memories of an elevator in the house and we kids would ride it up and down. I wasn’t sure if my memory was correct so I asked my cousin Ron and he says he thinks it might have been a dumbwaiter. He’s probably right. Whatever it was we had a lot of fun riding in it.

In the front of the house was a big swimming pool that needed to be repaired. My father along with Uncle Harry and I think Uncle Richard was there, worked on repairing it. There was no water in the pool and I walked around in it and went to the deep end. I thought it was so cool to be in the deep end with no water. The edge of the pool seemed so high up.
The house was later torn down and a six lane freeway now runs through where the house once stood.


Uncle Harry was an inventor. He created many different products. His most famous one is Ty-D-Bol, which is a toilet bowl cleaner. He developed it in 1958 and sold the company in 1960.


From 1968 to 1984 one of the most famous commercials on TV was for Ty-D-Bol. It featured a man in a yachting uniform driving a boat in the toilet tank. He was called the Ty-D-Bol man. It became an American icon. People today still remember the Ty-D-Bol man and comedians sometimes mention him in their monologues.

He invented other types of cleaning materials, a swimming pool chlorinator and a water filter system.


He was developing the water filter system in the 1980’s. The company was called HOH Water Technology. He lived in Thousand Oaks, California at that time. That’s a city about an hour drive north of Los Angeles. My father and mother lived there for a few months so my father could help Uncle Harry with building the filter.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-01-19-fi-37149-story.html

The rights of the filter were sold a couple of times to different companies and Ron taught the workers the technology of how to use it until he retired last year.

Some of Harry's Children. From left to right Daniel Timothy, Cynthia. Roger and Ron.
Some of Harry’s Children. From left to right Daniel Timothy, Cynthia. Roger and Ron.


My father always told us a story that in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s Uncle Harry invented an anti-gravity ball or machine. The U.S. military learned about it and took it away from him.

Uncle Harry was fun to be around. He always had us laughing.
When he lived in Thousand Oaks he kept asking me to move down there. He told me he had committed his life to Jesus Christ and became a Christian and wanted me to teach the Bible to him. I eventually did move there in 1985 and stayed 2 years.

Harry and some of his children at the family reunion 1985
Harry and some of his children at the family reunion 1985


Whenever I visit with other relatives, Uncle Harry always comes up in conversation and memories of him shared.

Harry's daughter Cynthia and her husband Joseph at the family reunion 1985
Harry’s daughter Cynthia and her husband Joseph at the family reunion 1985
Harry's Son Timothy at the family reunion 1985
Harry’s Son Timothy at the family reunion 1985
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