Who is the samurai musher? Jujiro Wada

At the turn of the 20th century, stories circulated about the life and times of Jujiro Wada in Alaska as well as western Canada. Jujiro Wada came to Alaska from Japan as a young man in 1892 and spent the next 50 years on whaling ships, exploring the country, and pursuing elusive dreams seeking. Newspaper accounts track him not only in Alaska and the Yukon, but also mushing in the Northwest Territories; Jujiro Wada was also knowledgeable about the Russian Far East. Several books and numerous romanticized articles (in both English and Japanese) and movies have been made about him, but his actual feats are hard to distinguish from the romantic accounts of the journalists, authors and movie directors. Jujiro Wada was present at the founding of Fairbanks, carried word of the Fairbanks gold strike to Dawson City and almost became the first Fairbanksan lynched by the resultant mob of angry, unsuccessful gold seekers. This short, wiry man ran competitive, long-distance, 50-mile marathon races in Nome (1907) and Fairbanks. He mushed long distances to Herschel Island and the MacKenzie River Delta. He pioneered the trails now known as the Yukon Quest (1903) and the Iditarod Trail (1909). He sought financing for Alaska mining schemes from many people including the Louisiana Tabasco sauce McIlhenney family. He died impoverished in 1937 in San Diego. This article attempts to sort the "thin" facts from fiction of the Wada story, especially as it relates to early Nome, Seward and Fairbanks. Also discussed will be the upcoming live Alaska presentation of Wada's life "The Samurai Musher" by the song and dance of the Jujiro Wada Memorial Association of Ehime, Japan, in the Spring of 2015 at the Alaska Performing Arts Center in Anchorage, Alaska on May 1, 2015.