Kisokaidô: Kano - Station 53

After Unuma, the walk is easy across a flat plain. 15km/10mi down the road, we reach the castle town of Kano. For strategic reasons, the Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616) placed one of his son-in-law in charge of repairing and strengthening the existing castle. The keep burned down in 1728 and was never rebuilt and at Hiroshige’s time, only the external walls remained. They can be seen in the distance (1) behind the small roadside restaurant (2). A lord in his palanquin (3) and his entourage are leaving the castle on the pine-lined road (4). At their approach, two commoners kneel beside the road, their hats doffed in respect. Had they not done so, they would have risked being cut down instantly by the lord’s samurai retainers.

The first editions have a pale red bokashi in the sky suggesting it is early morning. Later impressions have a blue gradation at the top of the design, giving the scene an appearance of early evening. The printing became coarser as the editions progressed.

(Source: The 69 stations of the Kisokaido, Sebastian Izzard, Brazillier 2008)

And now ?

After Unuma, we are going further inland, away from the Kiso River and we will not see it anymore. The road crosses the town of Gifu and goes in front of the air defence base, one of the largest in Japan. The station of Kano was the largest in the Mino Province and was located near the Gifu rail station. An earthquake in 1891 and the bombings in 1945 have destroyed what was remaining of the station and the Tenman-gu shrine, originally the castle shrine is the only building left from the Edo period. Gifu is dominated by its castle reconstructed in 1950. It was originally built by the Saito clan, then taken by Oda Nobunaga in 1567, but severely damaged during the civil wars, it was demolished in 1650.

North of Gifu lies the town of Mino, main centre for the making of Japanese paper or “washi” made from the bark of mulberry trees. Branches are boiled and stripped of their outer bark, and then dried. The fibers are then boiled with lye to remove starch, fat and tannin and then placed in running water to remove the lye. The fibers are then bleached, then laid on a rock or board and beaten. The resulting pulp is scooped onto a screen and shaken to spread the fibers evenly. Japanese paper or washi is very strong closer to fabric than a western-type paper. Washi is used for printing, for origami (paper folding), for moving partitions (shoji), lamps, boxes, umbrellas,...