Toyama Prefecture Specialty Products, Souvenirs, Shrines and Temples, and Travel | 47 Prefecture Guide

Toyama’s terrain is extreme. Mountains in the 3,000-meter class are connected over a short distance to a bay 1,000 meters deep. This difference in elevation shapes the food, the scenery, and the faith.

Specialties

Toyama Bay is a deep bay. That is why deep-sea fish can be caught close to shore: white shrimp, firefly squid, and winter yellowtail.

Firefly squid rise to the shallow parts of the bay on spring nights and glow. What is designated as a national Special Natural Monument is not the firefly squid itself, but a place called the “Sea Area of Firefly Squid Swarming in Toyama Bay.” The entire place where the phenomenon occurs is protected.

Inland, there is rice. Snowmelt from the Tateyama Mountain Range flows straight into the paddies.

Souvenirs

Masu no sushi is trout cured with vinegar and packed together with bamboo leaves in a round bentwood container. Originally, it was a preserved food made with cherry salmon caught in the Jinzu River. The bentwood container is also a woodworking technique of this land.

Dried white shrimp, kelp-cured foods, and Takaoka copperware wind chimes.

Shrines and Temples

Oyama Shrine in Tateyama Town Together, Maedachi Shadan, Chugu Kiganden, and Mine Honsha form one shrine; Mine Honsha stands on the summit at an elevation of 3,003 meters.

Tateyama, together with Mount Fuji and Mount Hakusan, is one of Japan’s Three Sacred Mountains one of them. In the Edo period, women were not permitted to enter the mountain. Instead, a ritual called Nunobashi Kanjoe was performed, in which women crossed a cloth-covered bridge while blindfolded. Crossing the bridge served as an alternative system of salvation without climbing the mountain. Even among the mountain faiths we have seen in this series, it is an extreme form. Today it has been restored and is performed again.

Zuiryuji Temple (Takaoka City) is has its Sanmon gate, Buddhist hall, and lecture hall designated as National Treasures. It is the family temple of Maeda Toshinaga, lord of the Kaga Domain. In front of Inami Betsuin Zuisenji Temple in Nanto City, carving workshops still line the street. The temple came first, and carving later became an industry.

Sightseeing

The Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route is a route that crosses the mountains by transferring between cable cars and buses. In some years, the spring “Snow Wall” reaches nearly 20 meters in height.

The Gokayama Gassho-style Villages were inscribed as a World Cultural Heritage Site in 1995 together with Shirakawa-go. The steeply pitched roofs are shaped to let snow slide off naturally.

Amaharashi Coast, Shogawa Gorge, and Kurobe Gorge.

Traditional Crafts

Nationally designated items are Takaoka copperware, Takaoka lacquerware, Inami woodcarving, Shogawa turned wood, Etchu washi paper, and Etchu Fukuoka sedge hats, for a total of 6 items.

Takaoka copperware accounts for about 90% of Japan’s domestic copperware production. Temple bells, bronze statues in parks, Buddhist implements. Much of the cast copper you see comes from this city.

For details, see 【VILLAGE Report vol.32】90% of Copperware Comes from This City

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References: Toyama Prefecture; Takaoka City; Nanto City; Tateyama Town; Oyama Shrine; Agency for Cultural Affairs; Ministry of the Environment; Association for the Promotion of Traditional Craft Industries — Value Village Editorial Department