加賀　金沢八勝之内蓮湖之漁火

About this print

This nishiki-e shows fishing fires (isaribi) at night on Kahokugata, a lagoon in Ishikawa Prefecture. Kanazawa Hassho no Uchi means "one of the Eight Views of Kanazawa," and Renko (Lotus Lake) is an old name for Kahokugata. It is one sheet from Rokujuyoshu Meisho Zue (Famous Views of the Sixty-odd Provinces), a series in which Utagawa Hiroshige depicted a famous place in each province, one per sheet. The source gives no year for this sheet, but the same design at the Tokyo National Museum is dated 1855 (Ansei 2).

Kahokugata is a lagoon (kata) spanning Kanazawa, Kahoku, Uchinada and Tsubata, and its water was once brackish, mixed with seawater. Fishing for crucian carp, carp and eel thrived there. In the Edo period the wealthy merchant Zeniya Gohei set out to reclaim land from it, but he did not succeed.

From 1964 to 1985 a national land reclamation project was carried out, turning about 60 percent of the lagoon into land. A floodgate was built between it and the sea, and the remaining water became a freshwater lake, now a popular fishing spot. Migratory birds such as swans, geese and ducks also gather here.

Glossary