By Isla Quinn
Cold air. Stone walls. A row of lamps along the water. Otaru, a port on Ishikari Bay in Hokkaido, is the sort of town that looks best in winter, and the sources we read say a good deal about why.
A port that grew fast
Wikipedia says Otaru has long been the main port of Ishikari Bay. The bakufu recognised it as a village in 1865, an Imperial decree made it an open port in July 1899, and it became a city on 1 August 1922. Hokkaido’s first railway opened in 1880 with daily service between Otaru and Sapporo. From the 1950s, the article says, the decline of the local coal industry moved the role of economic hub to Sapporo.
The canal
Two accounts, two lengths. The Unga Plus blog, written by a local shop, says construction began in 1914 and finished in 1923, and that the canal is about 1,300 metres long and 40 metres wide. The Hokkaido tourism board’s site says the canal was completed in 1923 and runs about 1,140 metres. We do not choose between the figures. They may measure different things, and neither says how.
Both agree on the idea. The blog says the canal was made by reclaiming land, to make barge handling more efficient: cargo went from ships anchored offshore onto barges, which tugboats towed to the warehouses. It says nearly 600 barges were working the following year. So the canal is not dug into land. It is a strip of water left between the old shoreline and the new ground.
Saved from the road
The blog says canal traffic faded once modern wharves were built, and plans to fill it in and widen the road moved forward. A preservation society formed, and over roughly a decade a movement opposed the plan. The southern half was filled to a width of 20 metres, but the scenery and the stone warehouses survived. The tourism board’s site says the North Canal keeps its original 40-metre width, the southern section has walking paths, many warehouses now hold cafes and restaurants, and 63 gas lamps are lit at dusk. That is a tourism site’s description, and we pass it on as such.
Glass, and why it is here
A different blog on Otaru glass says the trade began in the late Meiji years, when the port was growing fast, and that glass oil lamps lit most Hokkaido homes before electricity. Factories made lamp covers from scraps of glass, along with bottles and goldfish bowls. The blog says makers also developed glass floats for herring fishing, from the late Edo period to the Taisho era. A collectors’ site on Japanese fishing floats puts it later, saying Japan began using glass floats as early as 1910 and mass-produced small ones by 1915. The Edo period ended in 1868, so the two timings differ, and we resolve neither.
The collectors’ site adds that floats were made from recycled bottle glass, mostly blue-green, and that one glass float could replace three wooden ones, according to a fisherman it quotes. The glass blog says a company founded in 1901 began selling oil lamps to tourists as souvenirs, that makers then turned to tableware and art pieces, and that more than 60 shops in the city now make or sell glass. Our reading: the herring trade left behind both the floats and the habit of working glass, but no source says that in so many words.
The candle festival
The Snow Light Path is held in early February for about one week, according to a local hotel’s page. The organisers’ own English page says it began in 1999, draws more than 500,000 visitors, and uses candles set in glass floats of the kind once used for herring fishing on the canal. It names a second venue on the former Temiya railway line, laid in 1880 as the third oldest railway in Japan and closed in 1985, and says more than 100,000 private candles light other places in the city. A travel review site says the name comes from a poetry collection by Sei Ito. A watabi guide says its roots lie in a canal preservation movement in which residents set out a few hundred snow lanterns. The organisers call it made by hand, and a quiet event, not a commercial one.
Dates in order
- 1880: Hokkaido’s first railway between Otaru and Sapporo, according to Wikipedia.
- 1899: open port, according to Wikipedia.
- 1901: a glass company begins selling oil lamps, according to the glass blog.
- 1914 to 1923: the canal built, according to the Unga Plus blog.
- 1922: city status, according to Wikipedia.
- 1999: the first Snow Light Path, according to the organisers.
Side by side
The canal’s length is 1,300 metres in one source and 1,140 in another. The float story is placed in the late Edo period by one and in 1910 by the other. Our reading: crafts that grew around a working port collect loose dates.
What kind of sources these are
Wikipedia; a tourism board’s site; two blogs by a shop and collectors, which we treat as promotional; the organisers’ own page; a hotel’s page; and a travel review site. We read no museum or city page.
What we left out
We left out population, opening hours, prices, a rail accident and wartime events in the town’s history, and the names of shops and makers.
Quick answers
How long is the Otaru Canal? The sources differ. The Unga Plus blog says about 1,300 metres, and the Hokkaido tourism board’s site says about 1,140 metres.
When is the Otaru Snow Light Path? A local hotel’s page says early February, for about one week. The organisers’ English page says it began in 1999.
Why is Otaru known for glass? A glass blog says the trade began with oil lamps and herring floats in the late Meiji years, and a 1901 company later sold lamps to tourists.
Related on this site: osechi-jubako-new-year-box-tiers, tenugui-unhemmed-cotton-cloth-chusen, kendama-origin-dates-hatsukaichi
Roam first. Shop later.