Hiyoriyama Park

The park offers a panoramic view of Sakata Port, the city, the Sea of Japan, the Mogami River, and the three mountains of Dewa, and within the park there is a monument to Basho, a wooden hexagonal lighthouse, a Taisho era clinic, and a memorial statue of Kawamura Mizuken, who contributed to the development of westbound shipping routes. Area: 3.9 ha

A historic park with the atmosphere of a port town. It is also famous for its cherry blossoms and the beauty of the sunset over the Sea of Japan.

The symbol of Hiyoriyama Park is the white wooden hexagonal Western-style lighthouse. It is one of the oldest wooden lighthouses in Japan, and was built in 1813 by boatmen and shipping agents in and out of Sakata Port to pray for safe navigation. The lighthouse was lit nightly as a guidepost for ships traveling to the northern part of Japan.

Another symbol is the Kitamae-bune, a ship with beautiful white sails, which is the largest 1/2-scale model of a Kitamae-bune in Japan. Kitamae-bune was also called “Sengoku-bune,” meaning “a ship large enough to carry 1,000 koku (150 tons) of rice. The largest ship in the history of Kitamae-bune is a vessel with excellent sailing performance, capable of carrying 2,400 koku (360 tons) of rice and proceeding under a single giant sail.

Kitamae-bune did not simply transport cargo. They would buy good, inexpensive goods at ports of call and sell them there if the ship’s cargo could be sold at a higher price. The ship was like a general trading company that sailed while doing “business. It is said that a single round trip between Osaka and Hokkaido on a Kitamae-bune earned as much as 1,000 ryo (60 to 100 million yen at today’s prices). It is also fun to think about the boatmen who had the Kitamae-bune dream of making a fortune in front of the white sailboat.

There is also a promenade in the park and as many as 29 literary monuments that introduce the writers and artists who visited Sakata. The walkway tells the history of Sakata as a port town.