Masayuki “Massa” Sakata (~1889 – 1974)
Massa Sakata was born in Kobe, Japan to parents Yukins and Jos W. Sakata. The family moved to Juneau in 1897 and then Skagway in 1898. Jos went to Bennett and piloted boats for the Klondike stampeders. The family settled in Dawson in 1902. Massa returned to Japan to attend school and then returned to Canada with Masa Takata who he married in 1914. Masa died two years after the birth of their son, and he was raised in Japan. Massa managed restaurants in Dawson and owned one as well. He offered a free lunch program for students and children of miners. In the 1930s, he left Dawson to work as head cook for Treadwell Yukon and then he opened the Sourdough Café and barbershop in Keno City.1) Massa Sakata owned the Rex Lunch Bar in Dawson in 1948.2)
Massa returned to Keno during the silver boom in 1949 to open a café which was still operating in 1966.3) He was the leading Liberal in Keno City in 1956 when Erik Nielsen was organizing the Conservative party in the Yukon. Sakata owned and operated the only café in town.4) In 1964, he returned to Japan to visit his son and other family members, and to see the Olympic Games. He returned to the Yukon, sold his restaurant in 1965, and retired. In 1967, he received the Centennial Confederation Medal and joined the Yukon Order of Pioneers in 1969. Massa Sakata died in Whitehorse and is buried in the YOOP section of the Grey Mountain Cemetery. 5)
In September 1974, the Canadian permanent Committee on Geographical Names named Sakata Lake in honour of Massa Sakata.6)