Jujiro Wada - Prospector and Cook

Prospector and Cook

Wada was in San Francisco during 1898-1899, and in August 1914, a young girl from San Francisco calling herself Helen Wada Silveira wrote the postmaster in Fairbanks, claiming to be Wada's daughter. She wrote a message to the Fairbanks Times and when presented to him by an acquaintance, Wada replied back, calling her "Himeko." Her sixteen children and their families live throughout Northern California today.

Wada was in Nome during 1901. He apparently spent the winter of 1901-1902 in Seattle, because on May 26, 1902, he arrived in Skagway on a steamer out of Seattle.

From Skagway, Wada caught a different ship to St. Michael, and then took a gasoline launch up the Koyukuk River. In August 1902, Wada took a job as a cook for E.T. Barnette, who had established a trading post on the banks of the Chena River that subsequently became the site of modern Fairbanks.