Japan's shipowners' village加賀橋立・加賀東谷

A shipowner's house of the 1870s, listed by the city: ship models, sailing gear, ship chests and votive ship pictures, and the 1916 magazine that called Hashitate Japan's richest village. ¥350 for adults (¥170 aged 75 and over; high school and under free), 9:00–17:00, last entry 16:30, open every day. A free guided tour is available if booked a week ahead. Free parking for 50 cars.

The Sakatani shipowners' house, with a lacquered reception room, a room kept for the domain lord and a garden. Eleven buildings are nationally registered cultural properties. A tea room and antique shop share the grounds. ¥400 (elementary school ¥200), listed hours 10:00–16:00, but it closes at irregular times, so phone first.

The 11-hectare district became an Important Preservation District on 27 December 2005. The shipowners' houses are tall two-storey buildings entered from the gable end, roofed in red-brown tile, with walls of reused ship planks. The stone walls and paving are pale blue-green Shakudani stone from Fukui. Because this was a village of owners and captains rather than a port of wholesalers, the houses spread over rolling ground, not along a quay.

A working port that lands sweet shrimp (amaebi), yellowtail and snow crab. The evening auction is not open to visitors, so the way in is lunch.

Male snow crab (Kanō-gani, blue tag) runs from 6 November 2026 to 20 March 2027; the small female kōbako to about 29 December, as on our snow crab guide. The photo is boiled snow crab, male and female, from Fukui: the same species.

Four mountain hamlets where charcoal burning was the main trade from the early modern period to the early Shōwa era. They became a preservation district on 29 November 2011, the second in Kaga after Hashitate, and cover 151.8 hectares. About 136 buildings from the Meiji era to the 1950s are protected. Ōzuchi is the innermost hamlet.

Two-storey houses with red-brown tile roofs, cedar boards and a small raised vent, the kemuridashi, for smoke from the hearth. These are lived-in villages: keep to the road. The old-house museum in Sugimizu was listed as closed long-term in October 2025.