The
weather dominates island life as it does prairie living. On San Piedro rain and
wind and fog are a daily issue, especially for the fishermen, for all the
fishers are men. Is it safe to venture out? Is it safe to stay fishing when
dense fog arrives?
When
I grew up on the farm I looked to the West out my bedroom window every morning
for an indication of the day. At breakfast my Dad would tell me what he had
heard on the radio would be the day’s forecast. Through the summer the question
was whether it would rain or would the sun and wind shrivel the grain. At the
same time too much rain would reduce the honey crop.
As
I read of the gill netters of San Piedro leaving harbour each evening to fish
through the long dark hours of night I thought of getting up on the farm and
spending long hours during the day riding a tractor up and down a field.
The
fishermen have hours to think as they wait to see if they catch fish. I had the
same hours on a tractor. There were no distractions. Unlike today there were neither
radios nor phones nor computers on the tractor. Fisherman or farmer there was nothing to do
but look at the sky and think on life.
While
Carl Jr. and Kabuo are fishermen the issue between them is land. The island is
as perfectly suited to growing strawberries as Saskatchewan is for raising
wheat. Both men want to move from the sea to farming. The white and Japanese
farmers who reside on San Piedro are deeply attached to their land. It is a
relationship I experienced growing up on our family farm. I believe it starts
with the hard work needed to grow crops. It continues with the tension of the
weather. It ends each year with satisfaction in a good harvest or
disappointment over a failed crop.
Katsue
describes her love of the land:
And she knew that Kabuo wanted what she
wanted, a San Piedro strawberry farm. That was all, there was nothing more than
that, they wanted their farm and the closeness at hand of the people they loved
and the scent of strawberries outside their window ….. She understood the
happiness of a place where the work was clear and there were fields she could
enter into with a man she loved purposefully.
By
the time I was an adult I knew every foot of our 160 acres. I had ridden over
and walked on all the land. In the strawberry fields of San Piedro that
knowledge of the land is even more intimate. Much of the farm work was done by
hand.
When
Etta Heine, a bitter widow, sells her family’s land, including the 7 acres her
husband had agreed to sell to the Miyamoto family and almost been paid in full
before the Japanese internment, it is far more than a breach of a commercial
transaction. The Miyamoto family has been betrayed. Nine years after WW II
ended the resentment endures.
In
Snow Falling on Cedars the major male
characters – Kabuo, Carl Jr. and Ishmael, the local newspaper editor – all saw
combat as members of the American military. Each was left scarred and somewhat
distant. The wives of Kabuo and Carl Jr. vainly try to break through the
aloofness of their husbands to release them from the pain of their memories.
My
father did not serve in World War II but many men and several women from Meskanaw
were in the armed forces. Some had a reserve on their return that never faded in the
decades after the war. One, in the language of my youth, suffered from “nerves”
for the rest of his life over what he had endured.
Both
San Piedro and Meskanaw, where I grew up, were self-contained communities. The
sea isolates San Piedro. For Meskanaw there were no highways in my youth and significant
distance, for those days, to larger centres. The residents of each community
know the families of their neighbours for generations.
What
happens to those relationships in time of war on San Piedro Island is addressed in my next post.
****
Living close to the land or sea means that one has to develop a deep connection to nature, Bill. The weather plays a major role in the success of a farm or a fishing business. So people are attuned to it. I think it's interesting that you found that way to identify with the characters. I also think you make an interesting point about modern distractions. Being on a fishing boat, or a tractor, means one doesn't have those distractions - it's a different way of using one's mind, I think.
ReplyDeleteMargot: Thanks for the comment. I think the all the electronics that are now available in what were isolated circumstances is one of the greatest changes in my lifetime.
DeleteYes. I would imagine that having a radio or an ipod to listen to music while plowing the land or fishing would provide a nice background to the work.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine doing either job all day. I only remember fishing as a child with my father who loved that hobby and I enjoyed the peace it brought.
This post about the book and the quotes from it are making me want to reread it. I don't remember all of this as I read it years ago.
And as far as the distance of WWII veterans, I can imagine it. I have a friend who was wounded in the Vietnam war and still has shrapnel in his legs and also has PTSD. It must be a terrible burden to live with the memories of war.
My father wasn't in the war. He enlisted but was rejected for medical reasons. My uncle was in the Philippines, but he never talked about it.
Kathy D.: Thanks for the comment. The war wounded of each generation all suffer long into their futures.
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