Dawson City February 1903
Dawson City February 1903
(l - r) Japanese musher Jujiro Wada, dog, and unidentified man.
Wada had just mushed 400 miles from Fairbanks bringing news of a big gold strike there. He was looking for his friend, Capt H. H. Norwood with whom he had served as a cabin boy ten years before on the Arctic Whaler "Balaena." Might the man in the pea coat be Norwood.
Close-up
The Relationship
( The following information is
from Dr. Norman E. Kagan's site at
http://www.usfamily.net/web/norman.kagan/wada/wada.htm )
Capt. Norwood took Jujiro Wada aboard his Whaler, "The Balaena" in 1892.
Norwood taught Jujiro Wada: English, nautical skills and navigation; and Wada made good use of these skills during a long adventurous life in Alaska.
Norwood left the whaling business after that trip but Wada kept in touch with his mentor and they met in Dawson and Fairbanks. After selling some lucrative claims, Norwood retired to San Francisco, involving himself in various businesses and died there circa 1918.
Jujiro Wada
Arctic Whaler, Hunter, Eskimo Chief, Prospector, Marathoner, Yukon-Iditarod Trailblazer, Trader, ...
Under the guidance of Capt. H. Havelock Norwood, Jujiro learned English, seamanship, and navigation. From the Arctic Eskimo he learned northern survival.
In Gold Rush Alaska, most Asians were common laborers, Ju Wada was a Superstar, a favorite of newspaper reporters. One thousand stories of his exploits filled the northern press.
Among Alaska's best non-Native musher, champion ultra-marathoner, and a cunning promoter of gold rush stampedes, Jujiro Wada traveled throughout North America peddling tales of his wilderness adventures.
Captain H. H. Norwood
(all clippings from The
Register newspaper, Berwick, Nova Scotia)
June 16th, 1897: Mr. JM Jarvis, our expert cranberry setter, has secured a job to set ten acres for Capt H. H. Norwood, of Berwick.
August 25th, 1897: To the Klondike: Capt. H. H. Norwood, of Berwick, has been appointed an Inspector of Mines in the Klondike region. The captain's experience in the Arctic regions will be of great value to him in his new field of labor. He will start in a few days.
September 15th, 1897: Capt Norwood left on Monday enroute to the Klondike.
January 5th, 1898: A letter to the Toronto Globe, dated Nov. 22nd, from a member of Mayor Walsh's expedition on the way to the Yukon says: - "Capt. Norwood with six men is moving back to the various posts we established and which are all more than supplied."
October 26th 1898: Capt. H. H. Norwood arrived from the Klondyke on Friday evening last.
