After 180 years, it is not too late to say thank you. That is what a Japanese delegation did last week as it retraced the history-making path of three castaways to the Makah Indian Reservation on the Washington coast. The story starts when a typhoon disabled a coastal trading vessel off central Japan. Three survivors drifted all the way across the Pacific Ocean until their boat wrecked on the Olympic Peninsula coast in early 1834. That made them the first Japanese to set foot in the Pacific Northwest. The trio were rescued by Makah seal hunters. But the tribe held them captive and ransomed them a few months later to the Hudson's Bay Company. Now, a delegation from the sailors' hometown met the present-day Makah.Get the Story:
Japanese Retrace Path Of History-Making Castaways, 180 Years Later (KUOW 4/28)
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