Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Peggie Nishimura Bain Interview
Narrator: Peggie Nishimura Bain
Interviewer: Alice Ito
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: September 15-17, 2004
Densho ID: denshovh-bpeggie-01-0037

PB: Well, it, Tule Lake itself is a lake, and there's shells there, but there are shells all over in the sand, but people weren't aware that you could do something with them. And of course, if there's nothing around, somebody is gonna get smart and think of some way to make use of what's available. So people started collecting shells. And first, they only found a few of the type that they wanted, or the type they thought they could use for making flowers. Then people started digging around in the sand, and eventually, they found out that these shells are in layers, and if you dig, you could find just veins of shells. So it got so that people would go out and dig these shells, and they'd dig four feet down, they'd get in way up, way up to their waist. Everybody was digging and it got to be like a gold hunt or something. [Laughs]

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