- [Narrator] "A Life Reimagined: The George Masa Story" is made possible in part by Explore Asheville [gentle music] [water splashing] [upbeat music] [revelers cheering] [phone pinging] and by Omni Grove Park Inn.

[bright upbeat music] Additional support has been provided by.

[gentle piano music] [boys speaking in Japanese] [ball thuds] [boys shouting gleefully] [flowing music] [flowing music continues] - [Paul] What moves a person to leave all that they have known for something new, something different, something adventurous.

This is the question that has driven me to the other side of the planet and back searching for the truth and the story of George Masa.

And I welcome you along this journey.

[flowing music continues] [flowing music fades] [sparse music] [voice of Masa, speaking in Japanese] [sparse music continues] [sparse music fades] [wind whooshing] [door creaks] [upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] - [Paul] I've always been drawn to old things.

My grandparents' closet, where I would hide, would have the scent of cedar.

I would open boxes that contained cameras and photo albums, revealing faces and places from another time.

I was always searching for something.

There are places I still go to hide, to look at old things, but really I'm always looking for George and his photos.

It was January, the year 2000, when I first saw a photograph of George Masa sitting on a handmade go-kart.

A photo album had been donated to the library, and the newspaper ran the curious image from 1917.

And from that moment, I've been immersed in, fascinated by, and a bit obsessed with Masa.

His photos, his mapping and trail work were remarkably influential.

He's known as one of the founders of Great Smoky Mountains National Park and was instrumental in the making of the Appalachian Trail.

In 1961, his friends had a mountain named after him, and more recently, he was celebrated with a historical marker, but virtually nothing was known about him and what was inspiring him before he came to the mountains of North Carolina in 1915.

Two decades have passed and my obsession with Masa and the power of this history would not go away.

Then some fascinating clues surfaced, letters written by Masa in Japanese that we call the Yama Letters that had never been translated.

So writer and researcher, Janet McCue and I went down the rabbit hole to try to tell this story in a book and new film, exploring new archives and bringing in new experts to prove new theories, and to finally solve the mysteries of George Masa.

[flowing music] On Sunday, July 11th, 1915, George Masa walked into the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina after just arriving on a train from New Orleans.

- [voice of Masa] - Like so many of us, when George Masa arrived in Asheville, he fell in love with the mountains.

But then to see this wonderful, very unique hotel that had an attraction to George Masa as well, because he loved the outdoors, he loved the mountains, and I'm sure he just loved coming up to the Grove Park Inn with the idea that, "Hey, I could work here."

- [Paul] Six months earlier, he had left the West Coast taking a train to New Orleans, Louisiana, and going by the name George M. Iizuka.

His tiny journal shows he practiced a signature of G. M. Iizuka.

After finding a room in a hostel, he struggled to find work.

He recorded very few details other than accounting for every cent.

With a meager balance he had few indulgences, an occasional beer and taking in baseball games whenever possible.

His records also show he was maintaining correspondence of some kind with someone, but it is not recorded who.

An employment agency set up the interview at Grove Park Inn.

He got on a train and headed north and his life would soon change.

- His very first job was down in the laundry room.

But very quickly, Masa was elevated up to the Great Hall where he became one of the bellmen.

When people wanted to go on hikes, Masa oftentimes is assigned to do tours.

And even in the early years we'll see him using a camera to take pictures of the guests.

He had probably a natural inclination toward photography that revealed itself even as he was serving in these other sort of mundane occupations.

- [Paul] Masa fit in quickly, and was soon running a side business processing guests' film and printing photographs.

Many of these would end up in photo albums that would later provide a window into Masa's first few years in Asheville.

[steady music] In 1916 with the United States about to enter World War I, tensions were rising, and people with foreign descent were becoming suspicious.

The general manager, Fred Seely, thought that his clever and friendly employee could be dangerous.

Two different times, Seely brought in federal agents to investigate Masa as Masa's photography and mapmaking concerned him.

- And so he begins to question whether or not George Masa is the naive young Japanese immigrant that he appears to be.

- [Paul] Both times the agents found the amicable photographer to be no threat, and Seely relented.

[lively music] [lively music continues] Just six months later, Masa held no grudge, borrowing money and a camera from Seely as he went out on his own with his first company, Plateau Studios.

Masa hired staff that processed and printed photos for customers who dropped off film at Smith's Drugstore just below his office.

And Masa networked his way through the city.

Soon he was working for both Asheville newspapers and doing photography of all types, including many visits to the baseball stadium in Asheville where the local Asheville Tourists played.

Masa's specialty was scenic images that promoted the area and were soon sold as postcards.

- Asheville was very focused on itself as a tourist destination.

Lots and lots of photographs are being produced of Asheville.

- [Paul] His photos were remarkably sharp and well exposed.

The speed at which he was able to master photography is extraordinary.

The variety of his work is also phenomenal, as it was throughout his career.

He could be found high on a cliff photographing Chimney Rock, and documenting businesses and city projects that were being completed as Asheville was being redesigned as a modern city.

But Masa's success collided with a rising darkness in Asheville.

- Thomas Wolfe wrote a play in 1923 called "Welcome to Our City" that really highlights and satirizes this idea of promoting ourselves as a place of progress while simultaneously being overtly racist.

[somber music] - [Paul] On November 17th, 1921, Masa's studio was raided in the middle of the night by the police, led by a leader of the local Ku Klux Klan.

- By 1921, Asheville had a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan organized by this man named Fronenberger.

- So this is where George Masa would've come to work every day.

This is his office on Pack Square, and this is where the police and the Klan would've come.

Masa is arrested.

He is accused of taking nude photographs of high school girls.

- He was taken to a police court hearing that went on for a couple of weeks.

- [Paul] It all started when Masa took photos of high school students dressed in their minstrel pageant costumes at his studio.

Another student, not in the group, made the accusation that they had been improper.

Fronenberger got wind of the rumor, claimed it to be true, and saw a chance to exercise his status as a special officer with the Asheville Police Department.

A police court trial was held bringing to the forefront the thinly-veiled racist accusations by the Klan-led police and a lack of evidence.

It was revealed witnesses were attempted to be bribed by the Klan.

Masa was shown strong support by many community leaders who saw what was happening.

The case ended with Fronenberger and the Klan discredited and the mayor saying there was, quote, "No truth to the charges against Masa."

In a testimony to his perseverance, Masa doesn't seem to have missed a beat, going right back to work.

And in this photograph, his right hand rests on a 35 millimeter motion picture camera.

[bright music] We have no idea how Masa learned motion picture photography, but starting with his first business in Asheville, he advertised that he could make motion pictures.

It's likely he simply got his hands on a camera and figured it out.

- Masa worked as a filmmaker in a couple of different ways.

I think he was motivated commercially, but I also think he was motivated creatively.

He was a newsreel photographer and that seems to be the first movie-making he did.

Then he worked with Pathe, he worked with Paramount, he worked with Universal.

- [Paul] Masa was busy, shooting many events for news reels as recorded in the paper, scenes for Ripley's "Believe It or Not," and footage of the Cherokee Fall Fair, where even Masa appears in another news reel.

- He was an artist, and he seems to have been really certain of his own talents and his own possibilities.

[bright music continues] [bright music fades] [gravel crunching] [bright staccato music] - [Paul] Researching George Masa's life has led me to many of his favorite trails high in the mountains and down countless rabbit holes.

I've been looking for this spot for a long time, and we got a tip that maybe this is it.

One of the most iconic photos of Masa is him standing on a rock outcropping, waiting on the right moment to trip the shutter for a photo.

So as we got closer to using that photo for the cover of the book, I knew I needed to find it.

Masa worked long and hard to blaze trails, map and identify spots like this, so Masa of all people would want us to get it right.

I'm on the Graybeard Trail in Montreat, North Carolina, and this is a trail that George Masa hiked on with the Carolina Mountain Club, and I'm gonna retrace his steps, or do the best I can, to do that.

[flowing music] For years it had been described as "Masa on Graybeard Mountain," but it didn't sit right.

I'd been up Graybeard a number of times, and as I researched this, I explored it again looking for that rock.

And I've shown it to a lot of people and they don't know where it is either.

So I've been doing research, trying to figure it out, but now I'm doing field research, a hike up here.

Of all the mysteries of George Masa, this one is relatively minor, but it still became a quest within a quest.

So I'm at the top of Graybeard Mountain, and it is spectacular.

It's really just fantastic.

But this is not the spot.

Just like all things Masa, there's still a mystery involved, but the answer is out there.

I just have to keep looking.

[flowing music fades] [bright music] The Asheville that George Masa arrived in in 1915 had been transformed by one of the wealthiest families in America, George and Edith Vanderbilt.

Vanderbilt had been enthralled by the Blue Ridge Mountains, and in 1895 completed a massive estate he named Biltmore, surrounded by more than 100,000 acres of forest he had purchased.

It was both an opulent display of his interests in art and architecture, and a scientific experiment for him as he was pioneering changes in the way America managed forests.

But George Vanderbilt died unexpectedly in 1914, leaving his widow Edith facing many challenges, and one of them was cash.

- Once George Vanderbilt died, she had a lot of weight on her shoulders.

I mean, she had to carry this place through today and that, I think, certain sat very heavily on her.

The first correspondence that we have relating to Masa is this letter in 1920.

- [Paul] She sold the vast Pisgah Forest to the U.S.

Forest Service, and Masa was there capturing the moment, which likely introduced him to Edith Vanderbilt.

- So this is Edith and this is Governor Locke, he was the governor of North Carolina at the time, and Cornelia.

And then he goes on to say, "The pictures are superb, "and Mrs.

Vanderbilt will gladly avail herself "of your professional services "whenever she has the opportunity to do so."

Edith certainly recognized Masa's abilities as a photographer in creating beautiful photographs, and I think those two worlds probably collided.

Pretty soon after that we see Cornelia's birthday party happening in 1921, and Masa comes back.

- So I know Edith's Vanderbilt was a talented photographer.

And -- - Early!

- Early on, right?

- Yeah, very early.

The 1900s, we see her photographs, and she's developing.

- So do you think that that had something to do with Masa being invited to come and take some of these very personal and private photographs?

- I think she recognized very quickly the value and the beauty of Masa's photography.

- And his eye probably, right?

- Yeah, absolutely.

- [Paul] Inspired by research into Masa and his expanding story, Biltmore archivists have taken a deeper dive into the vast collection of Biltmore Estate's archives.

An abundance of photos have been revealed to be Masa's work.

- Unbeknownst to us, we've opened up folders and that type of thing and found that indeed within that collection, there are the photographs that we refer to as "The Masa Interiors" from 1930 when the house opened.

- [Paul] Masa wrote to a friend about his excitement for the project at Biltmore.

- [Narrator] "I got nice mean job on hand.

"I started this morning, "but this old shuck and ground "take me quite time to complete.

"Whenever you come to Asheville, sure I will take you there, "show you what money can do."

- [Paul] These photos capture Biltmore at a critical time before the house was open to the public.

- Which were used for decades afterwards.

- [Paul] But with those prints, something even more surprising was the discovery that their archive contained Masa's original 8-by-10 negatives, the actual film that was in Masa's camera.

- And lo and behold, on the back of them, there are the 8-by-10 negatives associated with them, which from my understanding is we thought those were long gone.

It's the negative for it.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

- Can I hold that?

- Absolutely, yeah.

- Look at that.

Wow.

I mean, it is just amazing.

- Yeah.

- So striking.

The image that we're seeing here in the negative is actually much more compelling, like, when you look at the depth and the layering of the clouds here.

- You could see the drama that was, clearly he was waiting to see how the cloud formations unfolded.

I mean, what more can you say?

- I just love how his story is still unfolding.

- Yeah.

- It's very exciting.

- Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

- [Paul] What you see today when you visit is largely how the house appeared when Masa photographed it in 1930.

- Every time we go in to do any kind of restoration work, interpretation and restoration work inside Biltmore House, we immediately come to our archive.

And these photos are some of the earliest that we have.

- [Paul] The descendants of the Vanderbilts have preserved the immense and amazing house and property.

It's still a masterpiece of design and construction, landscaping and history.

Using Masa's original images and angles, director of photography, Bryan Fowler and I turned our lens on Biltmore again and time travel a hundred years or so.

[flowing music continues] [flowing music continues] [flowing music continues] The George Masa negatives found in Biltmore's collection are the only ones that are known to have survived from some 4,000 or more that disappeared in the late 1950s.

But through the decades and through the work of many an abundance of Masa's prints have surfaced and been identified preserving an invaluable window into the Appalachian region of the early 20th century.

[bluegrass music] And two of the most diligent searchers and endearing people are Bill and Alice Hart.

Theirs is a love story for the mountains, for George Masa, and for each other.

- We were immersed in it, and our lives were just a part of the Smokies from the very beginning.

So it just made sense once we got a view of Masa that we wanted to know more, and that he became an important part of our lives.

- [Paul] Bill did more than collect.

He hiked every trail in the Smokies and wrote an article about Masa that was published in 1997, that was the first expansive presentation of Masa's story.

He quickly ran into the mysteries and dead ends.

But those were some of the intriguing elements that inspired me to dig deeper in 2000 and make the film, "The Mystery of George Masa."

And 20 years later, Bill helped to make possible Masa's historical marker in downtown Asheville.

- And all of those images that we see firsthand, I would say are embedded in our souls and who we are.

- [Paul] Bill and Alice love sharing George Masa's story, and they donated their collection to Western Carolina University's archive for people to study and enjoy.

And Bill and Alice, with their grandson Will, were among the first to take it all in.

- It brings me to tears just to see his work and see it so beautifully presented and remembered.

And we go back to all the times as we collected these things and how much each step that we took meant to us.

And we would always laugh and say, "It's for George."

[water flowing] [bright flowing music] - [Paul] In the mid 1920s, Masa began exploring and photographing in the Great Smokies, and he sent photo albums celebrating and lobbying for it to be a National Park to the White House, to the governors of North Carolina and Tennessee, and to the head of the National Park Service.

- I don't think you can find someone more inspiring than him that worked in these mountains from that period.

It's startling that he fell in love with his place as deeply as he fell in love with it, as quickly as he fell in love with it, and made his mark on this place.

That to me is incredibly inspiring.

The fact that he would drop everything and just take off and go to the woods, to me, says a lot about him as an individual.

[bright flowing music continues] - When you look at his photographs, you feel how beautiful he saw this landscape.

You can really see the effort he put into maybe standing on a mountaintop for hours and hours, waiting for the perfect lighting and the perfect shot, knowing that he was carrying camera equipment half of his weight, bush whacking through things, but then also knowing that maybe he went through some xenophobic experiences.

Maybe he had experiences with racism, but that still didn't stop him from capturing how special this landscape is because it offered him a new start, a way to really leave a mark on a place that he didn't think would maybe accept him coming here.

- [Paul] Masa has long been known for his contributions to the creation and preservation of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

His photography and his advocacy were relentless from around the time when he first met Horace Kephart and their passions aligned for saving the remaining virgin wilderness and turning these mountains, rivers, and trails into a National Park.

[steady music] - It's hard to imagine getting your hands around a half a million acres, you know?

He and Kephart seem to have an ability to do that.

Place informed him somehow creatively like I think no other place.

Here were these two individuals that really kind of lived this place.

- [Paul] Kephart was a revered librarian and writer who had come to these mountains 20 years earlier following a stress and alcohol-fueled breakdown in St.

Louis.

- Well, I think Kephart was attracted to Masa because he was a good photographer.

Kephart was always looking for good photographs for his books.

I think Masa knew the breadth of knowledge that Kephart had.

- I think between the two, with their images and Kephart's writing and knowledge, that I don't know of any other two people who could make such a strong case for preservation.

- [Paul] And for many eyes, George Masa's photos were the first images they had seen from atop the highest mountains and along the most beautiful rivers.

Masa went to many vistas that had never been captured in photos, taking thousands of pictures and published hundreds.

The nation was beginning to embrace National Parks, but still this was, in a sense, a battle of vision.

The land was owned by timber barons and homesteaders, but Masa and Kephart focused on swaying public and political opinion towards the idea, which ultimately succeeded.

- I could imagine that his friends saw how passionate he was to his work, to his art, and maybe it inspired them to think if this is so special to someone who is not from here, even more reason to keep it preserved.

[lively music] - [Paul] The photos by Masa that he had given to Kephart are, to me, the most impressive single collection of Masa photographs.

They include many shots of the Smokies, yes, but they also exhibit the curiosity they both had about everything they were encountering: the trails, rivers, caves, and the people.

This includes an unprecedented look at the Cherokee with images of Cherokee stickball games being played, and arts and homes and portraits of the Cherokee.

In March of 1931, Masa and Kephart were thinking about the future and had plans to open a business near the park, described by Masa as a rustic place to sell photos, mountain crafts to visitors.

Masa's hope was... - [voice of Masa] [lively music fades] [poignant flowing music] - [Paul] In April 1931, Kephart was suddenly killed in an automobile accident, and it shocked and grieved Masa in ways he said he'd never experienced.

- [voice of Masa] This morning I have read paper.

In headline, Horace Kephart Killed.

I couldn't believe it.

- [Paul] And just a month before his death, Kephart had written to Arno Cammerer saying essentially that Masa had done the lion's share of the work and that he, Masa, deserved a monument.

The loss of his best friend devastated Masa.

But even in the midst of the Great Depression, he pushed forward with everything the two were working on together.

- [voice of Masa] "We must keep going on "what we have in our hands.

"I like to carry out what Kep wanted."

- Certainly the most challenging time because it was in the middle of the Depression.

He had no income coming in, he was sick, and yet he wasn't about to drop any of those projects.

They were important to Kephart, and they were important to him.

- [Paul] In 1932, when the Parks Commission finally closed the deal to purchase much of the future National Park from Champion Fibre Company, Masa could hardly restrain his joy, writing to Myron Avery in all caps, saying... - [voice of Masa] "It was the greatest news "I ever heard in my life.

"Three cheers for Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

"Wish Kep hear this news.

"I like to see what he does, but..." - Well, I think it's an incredible tribute to a friendship.

- [Paul] After Masa's death, an obituary said this, "Each was a philosopher, "an ardent lover of the great outdoors.

"And these common ties "brought their souls into the closest of kinship."

[poignant flowing music fades] Masa and Kephart were far from ordinary, and it was in fact, legally impossible for Masa to seek American citizenship.

But their service was given a high tribute many decades later.

- Thank you, everybody.

Protecting this legacy has been the responsibility of all who served this country.

There's also the story of ordinary Americans who devoted their lives to protecting the land that they loved.

That's what Horace Kephart and George Masa did.

This is a wonderful story; two men, they met in the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina.

Each had moved there to start a new life.

Horrified that their beloved wilderness was being clear cut at a rate of 60 acres a day, Horace and George worked with other members of the community to get the land set aside.

So stories like these remind us what citizenship is all about.

[audience applauding] [bright music] - [Paul] Photos of George Masa hiking with the Carolina Mountain Club, show him in a community of trail-loving people where he became a respected leader.

Masa liked to move fast, which probably explained his memorable admonishments.

- [voice of Masa] - [Paul] And... - [voice of Masa] - [Paul] The Appalachian Trail was a complex logistical challenge with thousands of options.

And after Kephart's death, much of the work fell on Masa.

His tireless scouting, photography, mapmaking skills, all proved essential to the work, creating in the Carolina Mountain Club the DNA that continues today.

[bright music continues] North of Asheville, the Appalachian Trail runs high along the North Carolina-Tennessee border, and here you'll find the Carolina Mountain Club doing work that Masa would be proud of.

[bright music continues] [feet shuffling] - The Carolina Mountain Club maintains about 440 miles of trail in western North Carolina.

And we have crews that are out every day of the week, all over these mountains.

And we maintain 94 miles of the Appalachian Trail.

And on the Appalachian Trail, there's a shelter about every 8 to 10 miles.

So this is the Friday, Asheville Friday crew from the Carolina Mountain Club.

And these are volunteers that come out here every Friday and do trail work on the Appalachian Trail basically.

And today they're bringing in a bear food locker, which is where hikers and backpackers will be able to store their food, and that'll keep the bears safe 'cause they won't be going after human food, and keep the humans safe because the food will be away from the bears.

We're putting these at each shelter that we maintain.

Pretty cool we're here today on the Appalachian Trail because he was responsible for the original mapping of a lot of this section of the trail, and also an early advocate and proponent of creating an Appalachian Trail.

And we're still practicing many of the things that both George Masa and early founders of the club began then.

So that's Masa's legacy today.

- [Paul] People like David and the volunteers are all being empowered to some extent by Masa.

Being on the trail and being useful are deeply important to people.

I know they were for Masa as well, but why?

The puzzling mysteries remained.

Who was George Masa, really?

[poignant music] [voice of Masa speaking in Japanese] - [Paul] When someone dies, a door closes, and this was the case when George Masa died in 1933.

Just a day before he'd asked a nurse to summon his close friend, Barbara Ambler.

- [voice of Masa] - [Paul] But she could not get there until the next day, and then he was gone, never knowing what he wanted to tell her, a regret she still carried when she was 93 years old.

The story goes that this hillside was covered in black umbrellas on a rainy day, June 1933, when they buried him at only 48 years old.

And below me are the bones of George Masa, six feet down in a steel casket that his friends paid for.

No one really knew the secrets that were there that he admitted to people were there but did not disclose.

Another friend of Masa's, a newspaper reporter named Glen Naves wanted to find any surviving family in Japan.

But this was made more difficult as his obituary described him as never talking about himself even to his most intimate friends.

But it did mention the possibility of a brother.

[energetic music] So Naves wrote a beautiful letter to the Japanese ambassador describing Masa's accomplishments and calling him "the finest and most noble character I have ever known."

The ambassador contacted the Tokyo Police, but after an extensive search, they found nothing.

No one in Japan recognized the man.

This letter was found by our team in a Tokyo government archive, 20 years after beginning my research into Masa, and helping make sense of the fact that for almost a century we've all been searching for the wrong man.

- George Masa touched a lot of people, and he probably had a lot of friends that we don't know about.

But this particular friend wrote to Japan to try and find out George Masa's family to let them know he'd passed away.

He couldn't find anything.

Nobody could find George Masa's relatives in Japan.

It was very sad.

But we now know that's because he wasn't George Masa, but he never fully revealed himself.

And now we can share with the world who George Masa really was.

[rhythmic staccato music] - This is the house where George Masa was living in 1933 when he died.

The house of Sally May, the mother of Masa's friend, and dentist Hugh May.

This is where letters that we call the Yama Letters were found.

The May family had found them after Masa's death.

They had held onto them for several generations.

They liked the intricate Japanese writing and the connection to Masa.

When they saw "The Mystery of George Masa" film in 2003, they reached out and let me know of the existence of these letters.

It's a bit complicated, but it took years to get copies.

And when they were translated, they revealed stories told by Masa about someone by the name of Yama, who had lost a significant amount of money and decided to end his life because of it.

These letters were written by George Masa on a cold January evening in 1921.

And curiously, they were still in his possession when he died in 1933.

- A genealogist loves the hunt, right?

And we also need to let the documents tell the story.

We can't insert ourselves into the story.

But the documents showed us who he was.

They revealed so much.

- The Yama Letters were complex and difficult to translate, but they became our Rosetta Stone of sorts to unravel George Masa's backstory.

- He mentioned so many names that turned out to be real people.

He mentioned life events that turned out to be real.

He referenced Shakespeare.

He referenced a Japanese novelist.

He referenced mountains.

I think we really learned a lot about the character of George Masa.

- Our research team described them this way.

These letters from Masa about the exiled Yama seemed to be a confession, a bearing of his soul, an apology and an expression of his remorse.

Masa writes to several of his friends, Miyasaka and Matsui, and describes Yama in the third person.

But Masa felt the need to tell his friends the story of Yama's birth and early years, painting a picture of a boy rejected many times, but finding peace in the mountains.

[poignant music] This is an ancient path from Tokyo to Shizuoka.

It's called the Old Tokaido Road.

And to be here, to see this trail, to walk these stones, this is an integral part of the George Masa story.

[poignant music continues] - [voice of Masa] [poignant music continues] - [Paul] These letters were drafts of letters, and they provided names and clues that led us to the theory that Yama became George Masa.

But all theories have to be proven.

And our team in the U.S.

and Japan looked at thousands of documents and photographs in the effort to connect the Yama Letters to reality.

[soft music continues] [suitcase wheels rattling] Frank Fakuda.

[lively music] [lively music continues] Two of the thriving Japanese communities on the West Coast during the early decades of the 20th century were Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon.

And here in the archives of the University of Washington, the Seattle Public Library, and the Japanese American Museum of Oregon... - So as far as I can tell-- - [Paul] We uncovered one of the more surprising elements to George Masa's story, that the friends he'd been writing to in the Yama Letters were indeed his best friends, but even more, baseball teammates.

[lively music continues] The name Yama began turning up in line scores and on sports pages in archival newspaper searches in the Pacific Northwest.

Photographs of Yama's teams.

Someone named Yam-Endo, and then the same person listed as Shoji Endo.

That person looked just like George Masa.

These Frank Fakuda photos, they changed the story of George Masa.

And then our researchers in Japan found images and stories of the same Endo in Tokyo Magazines covering Japanese baseball in America.

[woman speaking in Japanese] - Here is Shoji Endo right here.

He played second base on this team.

So this is a great photograph.

And Shoji Endo is right here.

This photograph and a few others, we digitized, of course, and used facial recognition to confirm with 99.9% accuracy that Shoji Endo was George Masa.

- That's where we were able to really prove, if you will, the identity.

They were the same.

Looking at those photos, they were the same person.

There was no question.

But of course we had to take it a step further.

- [Paul] With this clarity, we dug deeper into research on Shoji Endo, and it was made clear the stories Masa had written about Yama in Japan and America were truly his story.

He moved to Tokyo after high school and first sailed for America in 1905, only to be rejected in San Francisco and sent back to Tokyo because he had contracted a contagious eye infection aboard the ship.

Back in Tokyo, he enrolled in Meiji University and also worked a job as a newspaper writer just scraping by.

In school for less than a year, he then, again, sailed for America late in 1906 where we had first found him playing the game he played in high school.

[energetic music] In Shoji Endo was a heck of a baseball player.

From around 1908 through 1914, Endo played for a variety of teams in Seattle and Portland, including the Asahi, the Mikados, and the Nippon teams.

A newspaper report described Yama as "a splendid fielder, "making the most sensational catch of the game "with one hand after a long run.

And another newspaper saying, "Mountain climber Endo's Mikado style of training "has given the team a great advantage.

"And all the Japanese in the city "have joined the cheering squad."

- So the Issei were just absolutely passionate about the game.

In our culture, we number our generations.

The Issei were the immigrants from Japan.

The Nisei were the first American born.

I'm a Sansei.

Our kids are Yonsei, fourth generation, and our grandkids are Gosei, fifth.

When it came to the Issei coming to America, we have a famous Issei quote, Takeo Suo said, "Putting on a baseball uniform "was like putting on the American flag."

And maybe some of the Issei felt that way.

Well, I think from Shoji Endo's point of view, he saw it as a way to gain immediate respect.

- [Paul] He gained respect on the field and as a leader of the teams, and even some celebrity in the community, with columns in the Japanese language newspapers expressing respect and affection for him, while also calling him a lady killer.

[women speaking in Japanese] - [Paul] But in the Yama Letters, he told his friends he had always been mystified by his popularity and saw himself as a rustic boy, not a playboy.

Nonetheless, in Portland he was dating a popular barmaid who he'd first met in Seattle.

But his life as he knew it was about to end.

[flowing music] [voice of Masa speaking in Japanese] [flowing music continues] - From the perspective of Yama's friends Shoji Endo had suddenly and dramatically disappeared in January 1915, leaving a suicide note, saying he's going to the Sierra Mountains to end his life.

So in these letters, he divulges many of the details his friends may have never known about him in an effort to explain his actions.

- But in 1914, the baseball team was going to play in a tournament in Japan.

And he was the manager of this team, but he didn't go with them.

We don't know why he didn't go with them, but we do know from various letters that he was responsible for the team's money.

And during the time that the team went to Japan, and we've got the names of the team, we've got their passenger records, all of that, Shoji Endo got married to a very popular barmaid named Tsuru Iizuka.

So why did he get married to Tsuru Iizuka while the baseball team was gone?

Then the team reported it was a financial disaster.

Shoji Endo had lost or spent or embezzled or did something with the team's money.

We know from the Yama Letters he was remorseful, he was embarrassed, but we don't know the circumstances of how he lost that money.

- He's trying to explain how he left Portland owing what was then $1,500, which in today's money was around $40,000.

From one aspect, Yama had been tricked into the cunning conspiracy of Furuya and Yamaoka.

- Was he tricked by the two business leaders, as he wrote in the Yama Letters?

Somehow his wife Tsuru and he were involved in this financial scandal, and they left.

- "It is indeed a shame "Yama had not taken the blame to himself.

"On another hand, it was only understandable "that Yama could not admit his guilt "having been deceived by the 'old badgers.'"

- And that's when we see Shoji Endo's diaries in January leaving up to the Sierra Mountains, and then he lays himself down in the snow and symbolically kills himself.

- "It is a fact that he died once to apologize for his sin "and intended to live again "to fulfill his responsibilities."

- Did he die?

No.

There's newspaper accounts that lead us to believe that everyone knew he didn't really die, but he was fleeing this shameful situation.

- [Paul] One of the bankers who Masa said had tricked him, had long been a banker for prostitutes, holding their money and possibly their freedom.

Had Endo used the money or the situation to free his new wife in some way?

It's a theory, one I discussed at length with our researcher in Portland, Mami Kikuchi.

- Right, he's on the road with very little money.

He has an accounting of the money, and he doesn't have $1,500.

- Right.

- Her freedom.

- Her freedom - And his ability to go wherever he wanted to go.

Like start a whole new chapter.

- So we don't know Tsuru Iizuka's story.

We don't have any immigration record for her, we don't have a passport application in Japan for her, so she probably came in under a different name, maybe a counterfeit passport.

We just don't know.

- And we don't have a photograph of Tsuru Iizuka, but Masa drops a tantalizing clue in the Yama Letters about what happened.

"When Yama left, "Yama was in the middle of love rivals.

"Yama was targeted out of jealousy.

"He was victimized "by the conspiracy of gentlemen of the coast "for their desires."

Whatever the situation was, it required marriage, money, and distance, while the team was away.

- I wanna know why they got married.

Was it a marriage of convenience?

Was he protecting her from something?

Was she protecting him from something?

- He writes to Matsui, "Frailty, thy name is woman," a quote from Shakespeare.

He says, "I wonder what happened to Yama's wife.

"I feel sorry for her.

"She was tossed in waves of hardship in this world, "and must have had a hard time after Yama's death."

- So there was all this intertwined relationship between baseball and journalism and banking and the Pacific Northwest.

We just don't have those answers.

I don't know if we ever will have those answers.

- The fact that Masa wrote in great detail in these letters to tell the story of his life really leaves us to wonder, why was he doing this?

At this point in Masa's life in 1921, it's six years later, and he's still trying to reclaim the honor of Shoji Endo.

It's hanging over him.

It's driving him to become a successful photographer, businessman, and more.

On his deathbed, he wants to speak to one of his friends and tell them something important.

Perhaps it is this story, how he has regained his honor, and share that news with his friends and family.

But it could have been the opposite.

At the close of one letter, he writes, "Burn after reading."

So maybe he wanted Barbara Ambler to destroy these letters so the story would never be told.

Either way, we'll never know.

Onboard the train, leaving California headed east Masa started a new diary and his new life, recording the optimistic words... - [voice of Masa] - [Paul] Clearly he was ready to live in the future, not the past.

[poignant flowing music continues] [film reel whirring] [reflective flowing music] - [Paul] My first hike in the Great Smokies was when I was seven years old, up the classic trail of Mount Leconte with my family, indoctrinating me into the magic of the Smokies as a place of refuge.

We had made some amazing discoveries about George Masa, but the years of work were taking a toll on me.

I was struggling to separate the complexities of Masa's life with my own.

Then we moved my 87-year-old dad into a care facility.

- [voice of Masa] [ground crunching] - [Paul] So I took Masa's advice and headed up into the Smokies, into the "balsam air" as he called it.

[reflective flowing music continues] [forest floor crunching] All right, George, I think we're here.

[reflective flowing music continues] [Paul breathing deeply] I had never stood atop Masa Knob, but that's where I knew I needed to be.

[Paul breathing deeply] [bright music] So this is it.

Masa Knob.

[Paul exhales] About three miles in on the Appalachian Trail.

It's not on the main trail, I can tell you that.

And it was named for him, and for that reason, it's special, it's sacred.

He earned it.

This is the perfect place to be named Masa Knob.

Spruce trees surround us.

Moss and ferns everywhere.

It's an honor to him.

When he was in his struggling times in Asheville and his business was broke and the economy was wrecked, and this is where he would come.

This is where I've always come for the real separation from everything else.

Coming down off the mountain, I could look forward again and our long awaited trip to Japan.

[bright flowing music fades] [gentle music] After almost five years of research and writing and the book manuscript in the hands of the publisher, Janet and I went to Japan to explore the places and culture where George Masa was born, meet the researchers who had been instrumental in our work to uncover the true story of George Masa, and connect with people who share Masa's passions, doing our best to return his story to the Japanese people who have never really known about his accomplishments.

[gentle music continues] Here we are in Japan.

- I know, I know.

- Early on I think you were, somebody said, to really know your subject, we had to come here.

- Yeah.

- You can't know the person without experiencing their-- - Without being in their world, right?

- In their world, yeah.

- Right, right.

- [Paul] George Masa's world in Japan was filled with mountains.

And one of our adventures there was connecting with a Japanese hiking club, the Shin-etsu, that hikes and maintains a trail that was inspired by the Appalachian Trail.

In 2005, a fascinating nature writer, Noriyoshi Kato, hiked the Appalachian Trail, returning to Japan with a vision to create long trails in Japan.

Kato did not know about George Masa, but the love and beauty he found on the Appalachian Trail was inspirational and motivational, leading to the 110 kilometer Shin-etsu Trail, 150 miles or so west of Tokyo.

His longtime friend and photographer Hideki Hoshino reflects on Kato.

[Hideki speaking in Japanese] - [Paul] Sadly Kato died in 2013 after suffering from ALS, only five years after the trail was completed.

But he, like Masa, left an important legacy.

[bright music] - [Paul] The trail crosses the Sekida Mountains dropping down to wetlands and villages as thru-hikers get both a natural and cultural experience, like the Appalachian Trail.

[bell resounds] Yuki Satoh hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2018.

And like Kato before it was a life-changing experience for them.

Yes.

- [Paul] That's a powerful thing to learn.

- Mm.

- [Hiker] That's pretty.

- [Paul] In recent years, the Carolina Mountain Club and the Appalachian Trail Conservancy have started collaborating with Japanese hikers and clubs, getting hikers together to share the trail in America and Japan.

- So the water is washing the leaf litter off.

- [Paul] And share knowledge about trail maintenance, and making a connection to George Masa, a trail club leader from a hundred years ago and a half a world away.

[Yuki speaking in Japanese] [bright music] [bright music continues] - [Paul] Traveling with our researcher and guide, Nagomi, we crossed the Hakone Mountains to Shizuoka where Shoji Endo grew up, and to this school that still holds his records.

[people speaking indistinctly] [ball thunks] The school's baseball team was preparing for a championship game, and as we would wherever we went in Japan, I couldn't stop myself from telling the teenagers about Masa's story.

Here, his name was Shoji Endo, someone who went to this school, who was your age, and he loved baseball.

- As a student, he enjoyed literature and he enjoyed playing sport with his friends.

- Yeah, pre-war?

- After war.

- After war, yeah.

- After war, okay.

- [Paul] Shoji Endo was an average student, but excelled at sports, and the principal was excited to show us a photo of Shoji Endo as a member of the Ryodo Club, boys that loved to play baseball, study literature, and hike in the mountains.

- [Paul] And as principal Oda learned about Masa, he saw a connection between what Endo had done in America as George Masa and what they ask their students to do.

- Students should contribute to the society in their own way.

He did that, right?

It's quite a surprising story, I think.

[rhythmic music] For this school, baseball is very special.

[ball clangs] [people cheering] - [Paul] Much of Shizuoka was destroyed in World War II, and from our researchers' efforts, we found the location of where Shoji Endo's house once stood.

Obviously much has changed, but a small temple across the street dated back several centuries and was certainly a place that we visited that we could share with the young Shoji Endo.

[rhythmic music ends] [poignant music] Shoji Endo left for Tokyo soon after high school, beginning his life on his own.

But in the midst of our adventure in Japan and the satisfaction of making this film, I faced one of the hardest moments in my life.

[poignant flowing music] I just talked to my mom on the phone.

My dad is in hospice care, and... I came on the trip hoping that I'd be back in time to be there with them and with him, but it doesn't look like that's gonna be the case.

He may pass any day now, frankly, and I'm not there.

[poignant flowing music continues] My dad died later that evening in North Carolina.

I got the text message from my mom driving back to Tokyo, and I stared out the car window at the Japanese mountains wondering if I'd done the right thing.

[poignant flowing music continues] Why is Masa's story so important to me?

Sometimes I really don't know.

Throughout my life I've taken on projects, quests to try to make a difference.

But I'm struggling with the costs, documentaries that are harder and harder to make, and I wonder if this work makes a difference at all.

That night in Tokyo, I walked the streets alone, a half a world away from my family.

And in this painful moment I understood maybe a bit better how the distance Masa felt from his homeland could have been crushing.

[poignant flowing music continues] My dad was someone I didn't always understand, but he was a compass I could turn to when I needed it.

He loved me unconditionally, something George Masa never had.

[poignant flowing music continues] The next day we headed to the mountains near Nagano, and I took some time in the forest to think about my dad.

From 7,000 miles away, my mom told me to forge ahead and that Dad was proud of me.

[poignant flowing music fades] - Genealogists always have this joke that they go to a family event and grandma says, "Are you done with the genealogy yet?"

We just look at her and go.

Genealogy never ends, right?

There's always a new discovery.

[bright music] - [Paul] After some whirlwind days of travel, research, and a lot of sushi, we left Japan for home.

But I knew in the Masa world questions remained, and our researchers continued to work, blowing up a new world of information about Shoji Endo.

- I think that's what's funny, Paul, is that you think you're done, the book is at the publisher, and then we get an email from Nagomi.

- I think it's a testament to how great our researchers are, that they keep going back and looking for things.

- [Paul] What they found was that in 1905, Shoji Endo had joined the first mountaineering club in Japan, the Japanese Alpine Club, and in the June 1906 newsletter, they reported that two of their members, Mr.

Kiyosawa and Shoji Endo had left for Seattle, promising to research clubs in America and send reports.

Clearly climbing was a huge part of Shoji Endo's life.

[bright music] Seattle and Portland both have volcanic mountains that loom over them, much like Tokyo, and they both have thriving mountaineering clubs that date back to the late 19th century, the Mountaineers in Seattle and the Mazamas in Portland.

Had Masa joined these clubs?

Into the archives again, searching for more pieces of the puzzle.

- There he is.

He was elected September 13th, 1909.

And he was endorsed by Charles H. Scholes, who at that point was either outgoing president or past president.

[bright music continues] We got him.

So in 1909 when Endo joins the Mazamas were 15 years old.

I think membership was a little under 500.

Mountaineering at that time was really sort of getting going.

It was just getting started on the West Coast, sort of the birth of that era of looking at mountains as a place to escape to, as a place to go and explore and to experience.

- [Paul] Endo's membership card listed his two qualifying climbs as Mount Fuji, first when he was 17 years old and his second as a 20-year-old in 1905.

But atop all the major peaks in the region were boxes that contained log books.

And if you were able to find the summit, this is where you'd leave your mark.

Here he is.

- You found him?

- Yeah.

"August 3rd, 1911.

"M.S.

Endo."

- There he is.

- "Member of the Mazamas and Alpine Club of Japan."

- Japan.

Look at that.

[Paul laughs] - That is so awesome.

- That's great.

He appears to be the first member of Japanese origin for the Mazamas at that time.

- [Paul] Endo reported back to Japan, and he was celebrated for being the first Japanese to join the Mazamas and a foreign club.

And in 1909 he was celebrated for being the first Japanese to summit the 14,410 foot Mount Rainier.

He wrote... - [voice of Masa] - [Paul] And this is where he revealed his new nickname, saying... - [voice of Masa] - There was proof that not only did Shoji Endo climb mountains, Mount Fuji, but also mountains in the Pacific Northwest, but there were photographs of it.

He was in clubs, mountain climbing clubs, and he himself wrote about it.

And he wrote, "And my name is Yama."

So it all came full circle.

I'm getting chills just thinking about it.

Yama can mean mountain.

And he explains that.

We knew that.

We had figured it out.

But it was confirmation at the end of five years of research that wow, we actually found direct evidence that says "my name is Yama and I'm a mountain climber, "and I have photographs to prove it."

- "Party of three: two Japanese and guide "reached summit, Monday, August 14th.

"Climbed Mount Adams on August 7th."

Well, he was definitely bagging peaks out here.

- Yeah.

- [Paul] What's even more remarkable is learning that Masa was photographing some of his own climbing trips.

- But then we learned that he had published photos of some of these climbs.

So he's also climbing with camera equipment.

- [Paul] Shoji Endo is credited with six photos in John H. Williams' 1912 book, "The Guardians of the Columbia," lavishly illustrated with 200 photos.

It included the work of more than 50 photographers.

The Mazama Club was also working diligently in conservation.

And this clearly informed Masa's future as he would later step into the National Park movement in the East and the Carolina Mountain Club leadership with confidence.

[bright music] With the watershed of information we had discovered about Masa's past, we still hadn't found Masa's rock... yet.

I think we're about 50 miles from Asheville.

And this section of the Appalachian Trail was one that we know George Masa... I mean, the whole southern section of the Appalachian Trail George was mapping and routing.

And he was taking pictures during this time.

This was taken around 1931.

And we're right off the Appalachian Trail, which is right nearby.

And we're right on the edge between North Carolina and Tennessee.

It's just classic George Masa.

He's got a jacket, he's got a friend there with binoculars, checking things out.

He lived a cool life.

He lived a very cool life, and died too soon.

[bright music continues] [bright music continues] [bright music continues] - Oh man, I think that's it.

Wow.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

[chuckles] Oh, this is awesome.

This is it.

This is the spot.

[bright music continues] Oh, it's so awesome.

It's just beautiful.

And that's gotta be where they were taking the picture from right over there.

Ah, this is fantastic.

[bright music continues] [bright music fades] [water flowing] [flowing music] - [Paul] If I'm being honest with myself, the search for Masa's story and his photos is addictive.

- Her journey to writing this book on George Masa started five decades ago.

- [Paul] Published by Smokies Life, our book was released with Masa's story finally reaching people in a comprehensive way.

After a book presentation, someone said the magic words to me, "I think we might have some of those Masa photos.

"Will you come look at 'em?"

And sure enough, there they were.

This time they were in Cashiers, North Carolina.

And on a frigid January day, Angelyn Whitmeyer and I looked at a collection of Masa's photographs made for High Hampton Inn.

- It's absolutely thrilling to find more images that are new.

This particular collection is really wonderful because there are a lot of photographs in this collection that are not in the database yet.

They will be.

So these are new shots, new images that give us a greater sense of how much Masa photographed and where he photographed.

So this is another whole region in western North Carolina that he photographed.

- [Paul] Among the collection were several photos I'd never seen before, and one of an especially beautiful waterfall.

A few hours later after a steep and snowy hike, I'm there standing again in Masa's footsteps.

[flowing music continues] [water flowing] [water continues flowing] [gentle flowing music] [voice of Masa speaking in Japanese] - Mountains, they were central to who he was, and that thread went through his entire life.

[voice of Masa speaking in Japanese] [gentle flowing music continues] - [Paul] The final months of Masa's life went down like this.

[poignant music] On April 2nd, 1933, Masa led a memorial hike for Horace Kephart to the top of Mount Kephart.

It was a hard hike on a cold, rainy day.

Soon after he was sick and laid up in bed.

The newspaper posted updates on his health.

But by early June, he was in the county sanitarium.

In 1931, after losing all his money when the banks collapsed in Asheville, he had told a friend... - [voice of Masa] - [Paul] But this fight he could not win.

On June 21st, 1933, he would die alone.

[poignant music continues] - It's sort of an ironic mixture of the American dream, followed by a true tragedy.

This young immigrant who comes to America to follow his dream, and he does so, but at the highest price you can pay.

- [voice of Masa] - [Paul] Masa's poetry had expressed loss and regret, but equally a faith of some kind in nature and in God.

Masa's funeral had been called a Christian burial in newspaper tributes, quoting a friend saying that Masa had become a Christian while in college in Tokyo.

But Masa was also reported to have said... - [voice of Masa] - [Paul] The Carolina Mountain Club penned the most beautiful eulogy, [forest floor crunching] "In the deep, peaceful silence of the eternal, "our leader is breaking trails and exploring new worlds.

"To breathe the fragrance of spruce on the heights "was new life to George.

"And calling him a genius "whose love of beauty was so intense "that a hike of 10 or 20 miles "was not too great a price to pay for a photograph "capturing some of the beauty to be found "at the end of the trail."

[poignant music fades] [bright music] - But what makes Masa so endearing and so fascinating is his total dedication to his craft.

- I can't help but wonder, though, did he always have sort of this burning desire to be his own man, to not conform?

- He saw his own strength, and he acted to make those things happen.

- And through it all, his personality just comes through.

- He was so real, even though he died in 1933, that's a long time ago.

- People want to tell the Masa story because it's inspirational.

- Totally to me he changed his passion from a sport now to an individual endeavor, which is nature, trails, mountains, the Smoky Mountains.

The people he meets on the trails, the community, basically a new team.

- He worked so hard to protect the Smokies.

And it's almost like he's giving us that legacy to protect the Smokies next.

I mean, we are the guardians next.

- What a deep, inspiring person as an artist and as a human being.

[flowing music] - [Paul] Our hope has long been to connect with any descendants of Masa, to tell his story and his accomplishments in America.

And after our return from Japan, we did discover living descendants of Shoji Endo's adoptive family.

They were kind and shared family stories and confirmed things Masa had written in the Yama Letters about his childhood.

We also discovered that after years of no contact with Shoji Endo, his adopted father had him legally declared dead in 1925.

No descendants of his birth family have yet been identified.

Thank you for letting me tell you Masa's story as best we can.

For me, the study into George Masa's life has been an amazing journey.

From the young father and filmmaker I was when I started this search, decades of life have transpired, but through it all, his story and this work has filled my life with curiosity and passionate people like my co-writer, Janet McCue, and many others who love history and value stories.

[people cheering] Masa's legacy continues to grow and inspire.

We can no longer say Masa's life is shrouded in mystery.

But I think the facts of his story are even more empowering.

From the Appalachian Mountains to Japan, people are hiking and giving back.

The Carolina Mountain Club and many conservation groups work in the spirit of Masa, as his life contains simple but powerful messages: risk, change, create, serve.

[bright flowing music continues] Buried a few hundred feet from Masa at Riverside Cemetery is the writer and Asheville native Thomas Wolfe.

His famous line from "You Can't Go Home Again" seems to fit.

"Something has spoken to me in the night "and told me I shall die, I know not where, "saying, 'To lose the Earth you know for greater knowing, "'to lose the life you have for greater life, "''to leave the friends you loved for greater loving, "'to find a land more kind than home, "'more large than Earth.'"

Thomas Wolfe.

[bright flowing music continues] [bright flowing music fades] [gentle music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [gentle music fades] - [narrator] "A Life Reimagined: The George Masa Story" is made possible in part by Explore Asheville [gentle music] [water splashing] [upbeat music] [revelers cheering] [phone pinging] and by Omni Grove Park Inn.

[gentle upbeat music] Additional support has been provided by.

[gentle piano music] The award-winning book, "George Masa: A Life Reimagined" biography is available from SmokiesLife.org.

For George Masa research news, photos, and more, visit georgemasa.com.