Visitors and newcomers to Bainbridge Island’s Japanese New Year’s Mochitsuki celebration, scheduled from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 3 at IslandWood off Blakely Avenue, may enjoy a tourist guide and directions to the event.

Folks arriving by ferry should take a left at the first stop light and drive west on Winslow Way. For a fun and economical loop drive, some cross-Sound visitors may enjoy driving around via Tacoma. There are no tolls westbound on the Narrows Bridge. And car passengers returning by ferry cross-Sound pay no fares. If you drive the loop, take a right onto pedestrian friendly Winslow Way.

At Madison Avenue and the island’s landmark 1896 Congregational Church, go right (north). This was the town’s main street running north from the steamboat landing over a century ago. Photos of the Japanese Emperor’s birthday celebrations at the church date to that time.

Go north on Madison past City Hall (a farm barn-looking building on right) to Wyatt Way. At the northwest corner is the 1907 home of Capt. Wyatt, a Mosquito Fleet captain.

Turn left onto Wyatt Way and go west, traveling all the way down to the Head of the Bay and around the corner. However, there are several interesting sites to note as you go down this hill. This was one of the Island’s former major strawberry farm valleys. All the land you see at one time or another had strawberries growing here from 1908 on until World War II and a decade or so thereafter on some farms.

The island’s largest locust tree is on the left just after you start down the hill. It was on the Nishimori family farm. Tall noble firs growing there were for holiday decorations, some for Seattle’s Frederick & Nelson’s (today’s Nordstrom’s). South and behind Nishimori’s was Moritani’s farm, where boysenberries were grown specifically for F & N.

On Weaver Road at the bottom of first hill, you can take a left and go a block and a half to Strawberry Cannery Cove at 240 Weaver. A painted strawberry boulder marks the entry between a giant cedar and fir. Go to the scenic water overview, park and walk around. The 80-feet-wide by 240-feet-long cannery pier extended into the bay between the two peninsulas. Walk to the end of scenic sidewalks that define precisely the cannery location. In peak season, as many as 500 50-gallon barrels of strawberries departed here daily.

Returning to Wyatt Way, the century-old home of Capt. Alvin and Mary Oliver on the southeast corner was the shared home, too, of Sakakichi and wife, Yoshi Sumiyoshi and family. Sumiyoshi was one of first berry farmers and founder of Berry Growers Association.

Turning left, again onto Wyatt Way, the farm on the right past Weaver was Sumiyoshi’s and later Nakata family’s, and next door to the west, was the first farm of Takeo and Nobu Sakuma. Takeo became Berry Growers president and today his sons operate one of state’s largest berry farms.

Here today, Bill Yoshida has created a beautiful, landscaped stone lantern garden in a forest beside a creek where once stood “The Winslow Lighthouse” Baptist Church ministered by Rev. Kihachi Hirakawa. To the south across Wyatt Way from the lanterns is St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, founded after World War II by Father Vincent Gowan and friends. Gowan’s father, Herbert, founded the Far Eastern Studies program at the University of Washington.

A model of an old sailing ship similar in type to those that once filled Eagle Harbor, hangs from the sanctuary rafters.

Further down Wyatt Way hill, you round the Head-of-the-Bay corner and the home of former Pacific Creosote Co. superintendent (on the left), past Ray’s Auto and a welcoming scenic shoreside park – another nice view point. A short side trip to the left and a quarter-mile beyond on Eagle Harbor Drive finds an interpretive panel at a former log dump pull off. It has historic photos of the cannery and berry farms.

A mile and a half beyond on Eagle Harbor Drive, at Taylor Avenue, stands the beginnings of the nation’s memorial to the first Japanese citizens uprooted by WW II at Prtichard Park.