Sawara City, Chiba Prefecture, river boats

I spent part of yesterday in Sawara City on the way to Lake Kasumigaura.  This city is known for its amazing collection of buildings along either side of a canal that runs through the old center of town.  Its a very picturesque tourist site today, but this whole area has a lot of various tourist boats, many of which are built of wood.  Three local boatbuilders supplied these boats.  In 2002 I met one of them, Mr. Takeshi Tada.

He was busy building wooden boats for the tourist companies when I first met him.  This has always been one of my favorite photos from Japan.

He seemed pretty stern when I met him in 2002 but he was all smiles seeing me again, though he now does only fiberglass work.

The shop has lost a lot of its charm...  He didn't seem to mind no longer building in wood.

We asked if the two wooden boats passing the shop were his and, without even looking up, Tada replied, "In this area they are all mine."

These are very interesting little wooden outboards.  We have the name of the builder but he says he's not available today to meet.  He's not building these anymore.  Both he and Tada san are in their 80s now.

One of the old buildings in Sawara.

A gorgeous old kura (the oldest in Sawara is 250 years old).  The vacant lot was an old building lost in the 2011 earthquake.

I remember photographing this sappabune in 2002.  "Sappa" means "bamboo leaf." 

The boat was floating in 2002.  I was told its about 25 years old and the last of its kind.  I am off to measure another one my guide knows about.

New construction in town.

Fiberglass tour boats.

On the boat ride we saw this, a wooden boat covered in fiberglass.  Its called a chokkibune, which is the type I built in Tokyo in 2002

I make take a shot at measuring this sappabune as well.

Shinano River Boat at the Tokamachi Museum

A few days ago I took the bullet train into the mountains to Echigo Yuzawa, then a local two-car train to the Shinano River Valley to Tokamachi.  I believe the Shinano is the longest river in Japan.  My friend Yoko had arranged for me to visit the local museum and measure an interesting river boat they have in their collection.

This is a pretty unusual style of boat for Japan, very low, long and narrow.  To me it looks like something you would see on the Mekong River and not here.  It intrigued me and I wanted to measure it because, among other things, I might teach a class in building this boat.  This boat is almost thirty-five feet long but just over three and a half feet wide.

They were ferries as well as fishing boats.  They ran on a line, moving across the river using the power of the current.

The owner's mark, not the builder's.  In this case it say "Yamago."  The museum director managed to track down the builder of this boat while I was there and I phoned him.  He built this in the 1960s  and he is now 71.  He said he built his last river boat twenty years ago though he still occasionally repairs them, which I found amazing.

Historic photo showing a boat in use in winter.  Note the snowpack.

The paddle.

The bailer.

This region has some of the greatest snowfalls in the world, and there are lots of adaptations to deal with it, including snowshoes.  Its a dense, wet snow in this region.  Most of these snowshoes are made of bent bamboo.

Rice paddies and snow still in the mountains.

Lots of ski resorts around these days, and European chalet-type architecture.

Tool Store

Today I visited Inoue Hamono, a tool store not far from where I am staying.  "Hamono" means "bladed things" (more or less), a pretty good name for the place.  The owner was incredibly inviting, and we had a great talk about tools and his work.  Osamu Shoji and Azby Brown (see previous post) told me about this store.

Nice carved wooden hand as a display.

We had talked about these hammer handles.  Note the bend in it, supposedly it improves the ergonomics.

Special spatulas for spreading lacquer.  Mr. Murakami had similar nicely made tools for spreading glue.

A see-through shaving created by a hand plane.

A yariganna, an ancient tool that is the precursor to the Japanese plane.

A round-bottomed plane created by using a curved blade.  I'd seen these once before, in another high end tool store in Kyoto.  

The same plane with a simpler version, a thin curved blade set in a guide.

The tool store owner told me these planes were designed to cut the curved corners of window sash,  like the one here.  It seems like an amazing tool for just this purpose.

A selection of slicks.

This unique chisel is made for cutting across the grain when making geta (wooden sandals) where you have to remove material in the middle of the block of wood.

The owner makes furniture, including this table.  His cat had clawed away at one leg.

And boxes.

And spoons, including this lovely Japanese ebony spoon.  He sold many spoon/bowl gouges like the two shown.  These are priced about $100 apiece.

Meiji Jingu Shrine and Osamu Shoji

Yesterday I met for the first time Osamu Shoji, a noted Japanese woodworker who has taught workshops in the West and led woodworking tours of Japan.  For many years he taught at Takumi Juku, Japan's first furniture school, in Takayama.  Five years ago he became one of the head carpenters at Meiji Jingu Shrine, one of the most famous Shinto shrines in Japan, located in the heart of Tokyo.  I was grateful that Osamu san took time out to meet me, and he invited Azby Brown, author of The Genius of Japanese Carpentry to join us.  I met Azby once 12 years ago when I was building a boat in Tokyo.  His work is very interesting.  Please visit Future Design Institute.

Osamu Shoji and Azby Brown.

Osamu explained that 100 years ago this entire area was cleared as an Army training ground and that this forest, which seems completely natural, was in fact planted 90 years ago.  His shop is now using material taken from the park.

One of two massive torii gates on the long walk to the inner shrine.  Osamu said this one is slated for renovation.  Those posts are about four feet thick at the base.

Osamu said he built this rack for votive tablets last year.

He pointed out that the main door of the shrine has been dented by coins thrown by the huge crowds that throng the shrine for New Years.  

These brass or bronze brackets reinforce the doors and windows.  Osamu explained those are not hearts but boar's eyes, which protect a building from fire.  It was fascinating having Osamu san share details like this as we toured the shrine.

A wedding passed through the center of the shrine.

The bride and groom.

Deep in the shrine property is the carpenters' shop.  Its amazing to be there as its completely surrounded by trees, so its easy to forget that Tokyo is out there somewhere.

Old parts being replaced.

Japanese sawhorses, about 5" tall.

I liked the roof treatment at the entrance to the shop.

That night I was hosted by friends at the Nippon Foundation for dinner.  They've twice funded my work in Japan, including my first book.  The staff brought out a basket of fresh fish for us to choose from...

... and then the fish we picked reappeared as sashimi.