The Chinook in the Shogun's Japan

I ran across this book, about a Metis Chinook who became curious about Japan after some Japanese fishermen landed in Washington State, and later arranged to go there (which was illegal), and taught English to the Samurai before he left. Those Samurai were able to translate when Admiral Perry forced Japan to open their ports to foreigners.

Amazon link

the book is a bit disjointed: the author is so busy checking the "facts" and dates that the actual story is hard to pick out of these superficial details.

Wikipedia page on Ranald MacDonald.

what I found interesting was that part about stranded fishermen. Apparently both Chinese and Japanese fishermen were known to have been stranded in that area in the past. 

There is a lot of stuff about Chinese "discovering" the Americas, but the dirty little secret is that a lot of people went back and forth, and ended up stranded in the western hemisphere, from the Vikings to the Basque fishermen, to the Mali naval ships, to the Chinese and Japanese fishermen whose boats were taken there by winds and currents. The book even mentions medieval Japanese pottery in a ruined village in that area, suggesting some had landed a couple centuries earlier.

The reason I bring up the Basque fishermen was that this is probably why England had a "syphilis" epidemic before the time when Columbus brought that disease to Europe, and is the probable origin of the Maine Coon Cats too...