It’s How You Play the Game
Mel Wakabayashi is our best-known Nikkei ice player. Not because he made the big times, although he did have a brief stint with the Red Wings of Detroit. Products of the southern Ontario junior ranks, Mel and his brother Herbie saw better opportunities some 12 years ago in Japan where a fledgling league was taking shape with the well-heeled backing of a few industrialists.
Mel was back in North America this past February as coach of the Japanese national team playing in the Winter Olympics at …

Less “Soba”, More “Sake”
In a sober move to reduce the nation’s surplus rice, the Japanese cabinet recently decided to use more sake (rice brew) and rice at its official functions. And Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda, a soba (noodle) addict, approved his Agriculture Minister’s decision to drop soba for his lunch in favour of katsudon (rice with pork cutlet) to set an example in the “eat more rice” drive. Japan’s surplus rice is expected to reach some five million tons this summer.
The Bulletin, February 1978

Mt. Manzo Nagano overlooks Lake Owekino near the head of Rivers Inlet some 250 miles north of Vancouver. The peak, named for the first Japanese immigrant to Canada, was designated in 1977 by the federal government to commemorate the Japanese Canadian Centennial. This 6,600-ft. peak was conquered, for what is believed to be the first time, on July 25 by the Nagano clan.
The climbers—three great-grandsons, a brother-in-law, and a friend—first had to take a float plane from Port Hardy to Lake Owekino, cross canyons to the mountain base through heavy …

A TEST-TUBE Baby? In Ten Years?
Many scientists in genetics are predicting in as short as ten years time, a woman will be able to select a baby of suitable characteristics, both physically and mentally, with or without sex. Some noteworthy developments have been achieved in the field of genetics over the last decade. It makes everyone very concerned about his future. Dr Suzuki, professor and researcher at UBC and well-known authority in the field of genetics, will be speaking at the Nisei’s February house meeting on February 26th. The place …

“We had a sense of mission in the sense that it was very important to do everything we could to sustain morale. We had to tell people: Look, in spite of all these terrible things that have happened to you, stand on your own feet. Look within yourself to your own strength and self-respect and your own sense of dignity.”
Tommy Shoyama
from the Langham tape collection