"Herring Prosperity Screen" depicts the prosperity of herring fishing

Herring fishing, which began in southern Hokkaido in the Edo period, including in Esashi, flourished as the sales channels for herring meal expanded through Kitamae ships and other vessels, leading to the song "Esashi's spring is not found in Edo either." However, the main fishing grounds shifted northward over the years, and from the latter half of the Edo period, the area around Otaru became the most important fishing ground. With the introduction of fishing methods such as the Kaigon fishing method and power generation, herring fishing and the enormous economic benefits it brought reached its peak from the Meiji to Taisho periods.

This "Herring Prosperity Screen" depicts the herring fishing grounds at their height in the 1890s. This pair of six-panel screens was painted by Kubota Kinsen (1875-1954) in 1903, when he was 28 years old, and was exhibited at the St. Louis World's Fair the following year, 1904, along with other representative Japanese crafts.

At the time, the main purpose of herring fishing was to produce "shimekasu," a high-quality fertilizer. From the late Edo period, it was used for high-value crops such as cotton from various parts of the Seto Inland Sea, indigo from Awa (Tokushima), and mandarin oranges from Kii (Wakayama). A letter from the end of the Edo period left at a fertilizer wholesaler in Tokushima Prefecture mentions Nishitani Shohachi, who had ties to the Otaru Warehouse, and describes the large quantities of herring shimekasu being transported by Kitamae-bune ships.

According to statistics from 1904 (Meiji 37), the total production value of herring lees in the entire prefecture was approximately 5.5 million yen (equivalent to approximately 22 billion yen today), while filleted herring for consumption was only about 10% of that, at approximately 600,000 yen (2.4 billion yen today). However, in Otaru alone, more than 60% of the total production value of herring lees was produced, at approximately 500,000 yen (2 billion yen today). In other words, more than 80% of the filleted herring in the entire prefecture was produced in the Otaru area. Already from the first half of the Meiji period, filleted herring from Otaru and Takashima was a popular product that had been branded.

Herring disappeared from the waters off Hokkaido around 1955. However, the seafood processing techniques continued, protecting the Otaru brand. Then, about 10 years ago, herring finally returned to the foreshore. This marked the return of the "spring herald fish" to Otaru in early spring.

Text: Naoaki Ishikawa