Otaru City Museum Director Naoaki Ishikawa Updated April 10, 2021

For those who have a deep affection for Otaru, the first thing that comes to mind when they think of candles is the Otaru Snow Light Path, which is held in the bitterly cold month of February.

"Yukiakari" is a winter seasonal word that refers to the phenomenon of lights being reflected on the snow, creating a dim light around the area. In other words, it is a phenomenon that can occur anywhere in snowy regions of Japan, but the ephemeral and fragile connotation of the word also fits another image that Otaru has.

The event was named after the first collection of poems, "Snow-lit Road," published in 1925 by Otaru-born author Ito Sei (1905-1969).

As the preface states, "This is all I have had up until now. Oh, how poor I am... From now on, I must walk alone with this collection of poems in my bosom. I must walk an unreliable and unsteady road," the young poet published this collection of poems while harboring tension and anxiety behind his secret confidence. The scenes depicted in this collection are likely the scenes of Otaru that Ito Sei had in his mind.

Otaru has developed as a new economic center since the Meiji era, and has become a popular stopover point for many writers during their tours of Hokkaido. According to Kamei Hideo, former director of the Otaru Literary Museum, the first literary work set in Otaru dates back to 1876 (Meiji 9), when Sanjo Sanetomi published "Eight Views of Otaru." As of 2018, even narrowing it down to works in the Otaru Library collection, there are over 100 works on display. Particularly around the time of the canal dispute, attention began to be drawn to the city's historical assets as a "declining town," making it an ideal setting for novels, which is one of the reasons for the large number of works.

I was once involved in the compilation of the "Otaru City Historical and Cultural Basic Plan," which aims to comprehensively preserve the cultural heritage remaining in Otaru. At that time, in order to highlight Otaru's unique reputation as a "town where literature is born," I included a "literary passage that best represents Otaru" in the title page of each chapter of the report. I asked Director Tamagawa of the Otaru Literary Museum to select the passage.

Among them was a passage that beautifully described the topography and history of Otaru. It was an excerpt from Takiji Kobayashi's "The Face of Hometown." "It is a port town with a population of 150,000 and its streets creeping up the mountainside in a stepped pattern. Products are gathered from the interior of the vast Hokkaido and then shipped out again to the mainland, making it a city that is like the heart of Hokkaido." In 1932, when this work was published, Otaru was still thriving as a logistics hub, even in the midst of the Great Depression.

This sentence expresses that "light" aspect, and it later became the title of the application for Japan Heritage Site status: "The town known as the heart of Hokkaido" (the application was not yet approved). However, the core of this sentence is in the following part:

"No matter what wave of the times it is, this town as a whole never passes by without showing some kind of reaction, as if it were one big litmus test." Otaru flourished and many successful wealthy people were born there, but there were also many who were unable to ride the wave and fell behind.

This is because the film depicts Japan as a "laboratory of modernization" since the Meiji era, striving for development while also creating many inconveniences.

There is a passage in Kobayashi Takiji's writings that touches on this "shadow" aspect as well. This is an excerpt from a letter he wrote to Murayama Chieko in 1930, when he was indicted on charges including violating the Peace Preservation Law and imprisoned in Toyotama Prison.

"As winter approaches, I am seized with deep emotions when I think of my dear country. There are canals, warehouses, customs houses, and piers. There, people walk with their backs bent under the oppressive sky. Wherever I walk, I know every person. I cannot express how much I love this city that rises up the mountains like a staircase, revealing red fault lines here and there."

Takiji, who "loved" Otaru, depicts scenes of ordinary people in a way that is neither glamorous nor lyrical. It is precisely because there are "shadows" that the light is felt so strongly. This is the atmosphere that anyone living in Otaru can feel.

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