Jujiro Wada

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Jujiro Wada was a Japanese adventurer and entrepreneur who achieved fame for his numerous exploits in turn-of-the-20th-century Alaska.

Wada was born on February 12, 1872, in Ehime Prefecture, Japan, to affluent parents. Around 1890 he traveled to the U.S. to attend Yale University, but in San Francisco he was impressed into service on a whaling ship. While aboard he learned English and Eskimo, as well as arctic survival skills, including hunting and "mushing".

In the mid-1890s he became a trapper in Alaska and in 1897 was serving aboard a whaling ship that became marooned with other vessels in drift ice near Point Barrow, Alaska. He helped to save the crew by hunting caribou.

During his wanderings in Alaska and the Arctic he worked as a trader, restaurateur, gold and later oil prospector.

Wada distinguished himself as an adept musher and he popularized the dog-sledding trail from Seward, Alaska, to Iditarod, in the region's gold-rich interior.

Wada died in San Diego County, California, on March 5, 1937, allegedly of heart failure.

[edit] Sources

Joseph R. Svinth, "Ju Wada, Sourdough," treatment for exhibit at Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles, California, 1999.

[edit] External Links

Wada the Wanderer