Hokuriku refers to the area on the Japan Sea side of the Chubu Region. It is sometimes called “The North Chubu Coast” in some English guidebooks. In terms of prefectures, it usually refers to the four prefectures of Niigata, Toyama, Ishikawa, and Fukui, but in some cases, it only refers to the three prefectures excluding Niigata. The cultural and commercial center of the Hokuriku region is Kanazawa, which is also one of Japan’s leading tourist cities.
Hokuriku is one of the areas in the world that receives the heaviest amount of snowfall in winter, with snow sometimes reaching 3 to 4 meters in the mountainous areas. There is little sunshine and heavy precipitation from autumn to winter, and it is even said that in Hokuriku it snows or rains one day out of two. Koshu Tani, a science fiction writer living in Komatsu City, Ishikawa Prefecture, once wrote the following about winter in Hokuriku: “Here, cold rain falls almost every day, with leaden clouds spreading across the sky, and it feels as if a heavy stone is being placed on my head.”
Another characteristic of the Hokuriku climate is the changeable weather. Here, blue skies often suddenly turn cloudy and a downpour occurs. Thunderstorms are also common. In Hokuriku, there is an old saying that goes, “Even if you forget your bento, don’t forget your umbrella.” (Bento is a Japanese-style lunch box.) They say that in Hokuriku, many people have had the experience of coming home from school soaking wet because they forgot to bring their umbrellas in the morning.
The area that is the southern half of present-day Ishikawa Prefecture was once the province known as Kaga, and its central city, Kanazawa, flourished as the “castle town of Kaga’s one million koku” with a population said to have exceeded 100,000 in the late Edo period. (Koku is a unit of rice yield that was used as an indicator of a domain’s economic power. A million koku was one of the largest among all domains in the country.) Furthermore, having escaped the damage of World War II, Kanazawa is a precious city where the historical scenery and castle townscape of the Edo period remain to this day.
Kanazawa has many attractive tourist spots, including Kenroku-en Garden, a nationally designated site of “special scenic beauty,” which is counted as one of Japan’s three most famous landscape gardens, along with Kairaku-en Garden in Mito and Koraku-en Garden in Okayama. In addition, Higashi Chaya District (also known as “the East Geisha Area”), near the Asano River, is home to a collection of traditional architecture called machiya (townhouses) with the narrow lattice windows, which continues to convey the high-class entertainment culture of the Edo period (1603-1868). Other places you should definitely visit include Kanazawa Castle, Omicho Market, and the Nagamachi samurai house district.
All the destinations I have listed above are of great tourist and historical value, and are worth taking the time to explore. The only drawback to these places is that they are always crowded with tourists, and sometimes you may feel as if you are in a historical theme park. In such cases, it might be a good idea to drive south in search of less familiar sites. With the flow of the Sai River behind you, drive south from Kanazawa and enter Hakusan City, and the mountains come closer. The castle town atmosphere will gradually fade, and instead there will be more places associated with Hakusan faith.
Hakusan, or Mount Haku (literally “White Mountain”), is one of the “Three Holly Mountains of Japan” along with Mt. Fuji and Mt. Tateyama. When people hear “Hakusan,” some may think of a single, independent peak, but in fact, “Hakusan” is a collective name for a group of 2,000-meter-class mountains, centered on Gozenga-mine (2,702m), Onanji-mine (2,684m), and Kenga-mine (2,677m). The area around this huge mountain range, stretching 40 kilometers north to south and 30 kilometers east to west, has been designated a national park since 1962.
In ancient Japanese Shintoism, which is based on animism, Hakusan was revered as the god of water and agriculture, and was also believed to be a sacred mountain where the dead would enter. This is probably not surprising if you consider the fact that several large rivers, including the Tedori River, originate from Hakusan and flow through the plains, bringing the blessings of grain to ancient people. Then, when Buddhism was introduced from the continent in the 6th century, this new religion took root in Japanese society, not in conflict with Japan’s original forms of belief, but rather by fusing with them.
It was in this religious climate that Taicho appeared on the scene. He is said to have been the first person to climb Hakusan and practice asceticism there in 717 (although it is still unclear whether he was a historical figure or a legend). It is often written that “Taicho opened up Hakusan in 717,” but in simple terms, “opened up” probably means that he, as a Shugendo monk, was the first to systematize the faith in Hakusan, incorporating elements of Buddhism and Taoism into the ancient Japanese primitive Shinto. After that, by the end of the 9th century, trailheads called banba (馬場, literally a “horse place”) were opened in each of the three provinces of Kaga (Ishikawa), Echizen (Fukui), and Mino (Gifu), and they became popular starting points for pilgrims climbing Hakusan.
The center of the banba on the Kaga side was Shirayama Hime Shrine in Tsurugi, Hakusan City. According to the shrine’s legend, this shrine was founded in 91 BC, which is almost an age of mythology. Then, in the Middle Ages, the shrine was bustling with devotees and Shugendo ascetics visiting Hakusan, as it managed the summit of the mountain and collected the entry fees. Even today, with the vast grounds of over 40,000 square meters, it is the head shrine of over 2,000 Hakusan Shrines across Japan. (The “Hakusan Shrine” is basically a shrine that worships Mount Haku as its sacred object.) Okumiya (the inner shrine) of this shrine, located near the summit of Gozenga-mine, is said to have been founded by none other than Taicho himself.
In contrast to the masculine Tateyama mountain range in neighboring Toyama Prefecture, the graceful snow-capped Hakusan evokes a serene and feminine image. It is not surprising, then, that the deity of Hakusan (and also the main deity of Hakusan Hime Shrine) is a goddess called Kukurihime no Mikoto (also known as Shirayamahime no Okami). She appears in the Nihon Shoki, one of Japan’s oldest historical books, as a deity who mediates the quarrel between Izanagi and Izanami, the male and female deities who created the Japanese land. That is why Kukurihime has long been worshiped as a deity of harmony and matchmaking. Even today many people visit Shirayama Hime Shrine to pray for goen (ご縁, “good encounters between people”).
If you still have time after visiting Hakusan Hime Shrine, it might be a good idea to take a stroll around the town of Tsurugi, which is close to the shrine. Tsurugi is a small district with a population of about 20,000, but it is a charming town with a long history and traditions. It was originally an administratively independent town called “Tsurugi-machi”, but since the establishment of Hakusan City in 2005 through the merger of municipalities, it has been the Tsurugi District of Hakusan City.
The name of Tsurugi was recorded in an ancient tourist book long before the name Kanazawa first appeared in historical documents. When you walk around the downtown area, you will see a couple of traditional wooden buildings, narrow and winding alleys, and irrigation channels flowing with clean water coming from the mountains. Although it is not a very famous tourist destination, the lack of tourists makes it a town that gives you a strange sense of nostalgia, as if you had traveled back in time to Japan of a generation ago.
The Tedori River, the largest river in Ishikawa Prefecture, originates in Hakusan and flows north. In the middle reaches, it turns west, forming a large alluvial fan (the Kanazawa Plain) and flowing into the Sea of Japan. Tsurugi is a valley settlement located at the apex (the fan head) of this alluvial fan. For that reason, it has flourished as a market town where goods from the mountains were gathered since before the Middle Ages. In the Edo period, there are records that a lord of the Kaga domain (the Maeda clan) visited Hakusan along the Tsurugi Gaido that runs from Kanazawa.
Today, Tsurugi is written in kanji characters as 鶴来 (meaning “Cranes are coming.”), but until the late-17the century, the character 剣 (sword) was applied for Tsurugi. This original fierce name was derived from Kinken-gu Shrine, the guardian deity of Tsurugi Town, as this shrine was formerly called Tsurugi no Miya (Shrine of the Sword). Kinken-gu was founded more than 2000 years ago and has been in this area since the founding of the Tsurugi settlement. In fact, the people of Tsurugi have a deep reverence for this shrine.
One autumn day, I visited Nishikawaya, a sushi restaurant just around the corner from Kinken-gu Shrine, for lunch, and the owner’s wife, a kind and friendly person, told me, “Hakusan Hime Shrine is famous throughout the country, but the residents of this particular area in Tsurugi have a deep reverence for Kinken-gu Shrine.” This shrine was also revered by successive military commanders and feudal lords as a god of martial arts and protection of life. It is known as a place where Minamoto no Yoshitsune once worshipped, and there is also historical evidence that Kiso Yoshinaka made an offering here.
Sake brewing and tobacco cultivation were thriving in Tsurugi Village during the Edo period. In particular, sake brewed in Tsurugi using water from Hakusan was known as “Kikuzake of Kaga” and was the official sake of the Maeda clan of the Kaga domain. (Kikuzake literally means “chrysanthemum sake”, but there are various theories about the origin of the name.) Also, fitting with the original kanji character of Tsurugi, swordsmithing (cutting-tool forging) was thriving in this area, and in the Edo period, there was even a swordsmith who served as the official craftsman for the Kaga domain. After that, at least until the middle of the Showa period (1926-1989), a wide range of forged cutting-tools, such as hatchets, knives, and hoes, were made here, and they were shipped to the Kanto and Kansai regions.
The tradition of sake brewing is still carried on in the town of Tsurugi. In particular, the Manzairaku brewery has been brewing sake using melt water from Hakusan since its founding in 1716, and has won numerous awards in competitions both in Japan and abroad. On the other hand, it is very difficult to find a blacksmith who makes cutting-tools using traditional methods in Tsurugi these days. This is because the craftsmen are all aging and have no successors, and after the Second World War, low-priced, rust-resistant, mass-produced goods began to be circulated. I was certain that until ten years ago, there were still a couple of nokaji (野鍛冶, blacksmiths who specialize in making farm tools and kitchen knives) operating there, but when I spoke to the elderly proprietress of one of them, The Asano Hardware Store, in 2024, the answer I got was disappointing:
She said, “We stopped blacksmithing a few years ago. Now there is no one doing it in Tsurugi.”
“What happened to The Ota Blacksmith Factory?” I asked.
“Ota-san stopped before us, so did Nagai-san. Imawa daremo shitoran gaya desu (Now there is no one doing it.)”
Anyway, I continued my search a little further. Then I found a record that Ikeda Tokuhei Saw Factory, a blacksmith from Tsurugi, exhibited and sold traditional kitchen knives at the Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Traditional Arts and Crafts in the spring of 2023. When I contacted the museum to confirm, the woman in charge politely explained to me: “Most of the blacksmiths in Tsurugi have stopped working, but this workshop is still open. This is the last one standing.”
“However, when I passed by the workshop, there was no sign of it being open, and when I called there, I couldn’t get through,” I said.
She replied, “I don’t know the details, but this blacksmith also does other work, so I think it’s difficult to respond.”
The video of him working in his studio was also uploaded to YouTube, which I have attached below.
■ There is sound. Please be sure to wear your headphone.
The name Hakusan (White Mountain) comes from the fact that the peak remains covered with snow for most of the year, making it appear white from afar. However, it is quite difficult to see Hakusan from Kanazawa City. This is because, in the direction of Hakusan, there is a mountain called Mt. Kuragatake (565m), which hides the mountain. Therefore, if you want to see Hakusan, it is best to go a little further south from Kanazawa and view it from Kaga City or Komatsu City. Kyuya Fukada, author of “One Hundred Mountains of Japan,” said, “Hakusan is best viewed from my hometown on the Kaga Plain,” and wrote the following: “There are few clear days in the winter in Hokuriku. On the occasional clear night without a single cloud, Hakusan stands out in the blue moonlight like a work of crystal, like a scene from some unrealistic dreamland.”
After driving south from the town of Tsurugi for about an hour along the mountain road, you enter Katsuyama City, Fukui Prefecture, and eventually come into view the forest on the old approach to Heisenji Hakusan Shrine. Present-day Fukui Prefecture was known as Echizen Province during the Edo period. While the above-mentioned Shirayama Hime Shrine was the base of Hakusan faith on the Kaga side, this Heisenji shrine was the base on the Echizen side. Heisenji is said to have been opened by Taicho 1,300 years ago. From behind the small San-no-Miya shrine, which is located at the very back of Heisenji’s precencts, a very long pilgrimage path called Zenjodo (禅定道) continues across several mountains to the top of Hakusan, and many religious ruins remain along the way even today.
When you arrive at Heisenji Hakusan Shrine, I recommend walking along the old approach, which stretches for about 700 meters, before entering the shrine’s precincts. This road is surrounded by dense rows of cedar trees that are hundreds of years old. This forest is called bodaibayashi, and bodai means “cutting off worldly desires and reaching the state of enlightenment.” It is said that the cobblestone pathway was built about 1,000 years ago by the monks of Heisenji, who carried the stones by hand from a nearby river while chanting sutras. This old road was designated one of the “100 Best Roads in Japan” in 1986.
Heisenji developed as a branch temple of Enryakuji Temple on Mount Hiei in the mid-12th century, and expanded its influence by forming successive alliances with the central powers of the time. It was at its most prosperous from the 14th to 15th centuries. At the time, it is said that dozens of buildings and thousands of living quarters for monks stood within its vast 200-hectare grounds, forming a magnificent religious city with an army of 8,000 warrior-monks. Historical warlords and influential people often donated land to Heisenji and requested military assistance.
