Imakane, Hokkaido
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Imakane (今金町; -chō) is a town located in Setana District, Hiyama, Hokkaido, Japan.
As of 2004, the town has an estimated population of 6,549 and a density of 11.53 persons per km². The total area is 568.14 km². The town flower is the tulip. The main meeting point in the town is De Molen, a large windmill. Imakane Junior High School has an exchange programme with Burnside High School, Christchurch, New Zealand. Burnside High School students studying Japanese last visited Imakane in July 2006. Imakane students are due to visit Burnside in 2007.
[edit] External link
- Town website in Japanese
Location
Imakane is located in South Hokkaido 〔the northern most Island of Japan〕 at North 42° 25 minutes and East 140° 01 minute. Imakane is situated between Oshamanbe and Setana in South Hokkaido on route 230 at the junction of the Shiribeshi-Toshibetsu River and the Toshibetsu-Mena River in south western Hokkaido. Imakane's name is written in Kanji (Chinese characters今金) it means "now, gold".
The History Of Imakane
Imakane started in the Kanei-era as a mining town as gold, silver and magnesium were discovered in the upper Shiribetsu River (near Pirika/Hanaishi area). The mined gold was used to build “Nikko-Toshogun” (this is a Shinto shrine dedicated to Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa line of shoguns in Japan) in Tochigi. In Meji 10th year was found in Hanaishi and mining was started by Oshima Kanzaemon. Magnesium, gold and silver were mined by more and more people as they came to work in the area. In the middle of the Meji era many many pioneers settled in the shribetsu river area near the river as part of the Hokkaido development. In the Meji 24th year Shikata Norioshi came to Kamioka (Imanueru) came 2 years later along with 15 other families including Imamura and Kanamori came to Imakane. In Meji 29 they planned and designed Imakane Town by dividing it into 129 sites for housing and planned the city hall and Police station. In the 30th Meji year Imakane became independent from Setana Town calling itself Toshibetsu village. On October 1 in the 22nd year of Showa, Toshibetsu village became Imakane Town, named after 2 main pioneers, Imamura and Kanamori. Today Imakane’s main industry is farming town being built on the hard work, sweat and tears of the pioneers. We live in a very globalize world therefore we will keep our pioneer spirit and our pioneer’s love for land as we go forward. Imakane celebrated its 100th year of autonomous government on 15 July 1997.
Symbol of the Town;
The symbol of Imakane comprises the meandering Toshibetsu River and the 1st letter of 「農耕」(farming) which can be written in katakana as「ノ」and pronounced “NO”. This symbol was decided upon by a public competition on the town’s 70th anniversary (1967)
Another symbol of Imakane is a large windmill located in the center of town where the old train station stood. It is called “De Moren Imakane”. The Name “De Moren” is Dutch for windmill. In Spring the tulips come into flower and is one of the symbols for Imakane.
Town Flower and tree;
The towns flower is the tulip and the tree is the; 「ICHII」Japanese Yew or Spreading Yew
The Imakane constitution
The constitution was established on 1 October 1967. To persist in democracy and will rationalize life and will make modern town To nurture a bright, healthy, hard working town To endeavor to develop industry, nurture skills to build a wealthy town To nurture the culture and make a peaceful town where the citizens can enjoy a joyful life. Our Imakane Town is to grow along with beautiful nature. We, as citizens, agree to establish this constitution while aiming to build our own utopia in one heart. Ane we agree to continue the pioneer spirit and to love the land.
The Origin of the Town Name; Imakane is named after 2 main pioneers, Imamura and Kanamori
The Imakane slogan; Imakane’s slogan is「いいまち 今金 夢のまち」 In English; “Good town, Imakane, dream town”.
The present Mayor of Imakane is Mr Hideto Sotozaki.
Imakane is famous nation wide for potatoes, especially for the Danshyaku variety (Baron potato in English). Imakane is a very young town having its 100th anniversary only in 1996. Imakane has a number of festivals, including the Snow festival in mid February (usually the weekend after Sapporo's) and the Autumn Festival on September 19 every year.
The Immanuel Church and the History of Imakane
One of the attractions in rural Imakane is a very old church. In May 1881 Yoshiyuki Shikata and 10 other devout Christian students of the Doshisha University in Kyoto, settled in Imakane. They built a straw thatched church in March 1896 as their spiritual base and they worked hard on the land while leading a frugal religious life. In 1918 the church was rebuilt with wooden walls and again in November 1968 to its present day state. The name of the church is; “Immanuel” which means “God with us” in Hebrew. However, during the war years foreign words were strictly controlled by the government so they changed the name to “Imanueru” with the Chinese characters 今縫留 and the surrounding area to “神丘”, meaning “God’s land” to preserve their religion. It was in this area around the church that Ginko Ogino, the first woman doctor in Japan, grew up. She was also the heroine in the novel “Hana-uzumi” written by one of the famous Japanese writers, Jun’ichi Watanabe. He came to Hokkaido and settled in this area and married Yoshiyuki Shikata.
The Pirika Dam
The Pirika dam is on the Shiribetsu River is just inside the Imakane Town boundary. The Dam is longest dam in Japan and the biggest in South Hokkaido, its length is 80m. This river is the cleanest river in Japan and this Dam has the longest fish race in Japan (2.4kms). Fish; Land locked salmon (yamame) sweet fish (ayu) eel (unagi) and iwana are to be found in the area. see
