Hida · FurukawaNo.747★★Open in map →
Hida Furukawa Setogawa Canal
— A carp channel below white storehouse walls
A stone-lined channel running behind the merchant quarter of a small Hida castle town, with white-plastered storehouses standing over it and carp in the water through the warm months. The station is a short walk away and nothing here charges admission.
- FromHida-Furukawa Station (JR Takayama Main Line)
- ~5 minWalk from the station, ~5 min
- Hida Furukawa Setogawa Canal
The sweet spot
Furukawa is on the same line as Takayama, one town further north, and Takayama takes the day. Most itineraries spend it on the preserved streets there and go straight back south, so the trains that stop here carry a fraction of the same traffic. Nothing about Furukawa is hidden: the station is close and the channel runs through the middle of town. It is simply the second thing on a list where most people only do the first.
Where it is
18 more notes in Gifu · open the map →What to look for — in walking order
- Setogawa at Ichinomachithe first stretch you reach from the station, where the storehouses begin
- The kura wallswhite lime plaster over dark stone, standing directly on the edge of the channel
- The carpcolour carp in the water from April to November, moved out to a pond for the winter
- Enkojithe temple on the canal, its gate said to have been moved from Masushima Castle, with carved turtles under the main-hall roof
- Hida Furukawa Festival Hallthree of the festival floats kept on permanent display, a few steps off the water
How to actually get there
- Hida-Furukawa Station → walk into the town centre, about 5 min, to where the Setogawa crosses the street.
- Follow the channel past the storehouses in one direction, then cross and come back along the other side.
- Stop at Enkoji on the canal, then cut through to Ichinomachi for the breweries and shops.
- Finish at the Hida Furukawa Festival Hall for the floats and walk back to the station the way you came.
- JR Takayama Main Line to Hida-Furukawa
- Hida-Furukawa is a station on the JR Takayama Main Line, north of Takayama, and the Limited Express Hida calls here as well as the local trains. From the station the channel is about five minutes on foot through the town centre. There is no gate and no ticket at the water itself.
- Return from Hida-Furukawa Station
- The same station takes you south to Takayama and on to Nagoya, or north toward Toyama. This is a mountain line and the limited express runs only a handful of times a day, so read the departure board when you arrive in town rather than when you want to leave it.
About the place
The Setogawa is not a river but a channel, cut stone on both sides, running behind the old merchant lots. Storehouses stand over it: white lime plaster above dark stone, the kind of building made for keeping things rather than for being looked at. In the warm months the channel fills with colour carp, fed on pellets and on the offcut wafers left over when a local dairy makes ice cream. The water is shallow enough that the fish are never out of sight. This was laid as working infrastructure for the town, and it still reads that way rather than as scenery.
How to enjoy it
April to November is when the channel has fish in it, and the town's own year peaks with the spring festival, when the streets belong to the floats rather than to walking. The canal is an outdoor walk with no opening hours, so build the visit around the places that do have them, the festival hall and the shops and breweries on Ichinomachi, and use the water as the thread between them.
Background & history
The town began as a castle town under the Kanamori family, who built Masushima Castle here. The castle came down when the shogunate limited each domain to a single fortress, and its gate is said to survive as the main gate of Enkoji, the temple on the canal. What the Kanamori street plan left behind is a grid of merchant lots, the water cut to serve them, and a spring festival, Furukawa Matsuri, held on 19 and 20 April with its floats and its okoshi-daiko drum, which the town still organises block by block.
Before you go
- Cash
- Walking the canal costs nothing. The festival hall and the shops along Ichinomachi keep their own prices and hours, and the hall charges admission and also sells a combined ticket with the crafts museum beside it, so carry cash as well as a card.
- Before you go
- The carp are in the channel from April to November; from late November until early April they are moved to a pond nearby for the winter and the water runs empty. Furukawa is snow country, so the winter subject here is the walls and the snow rather than the fish. The channel itself has no opening hours.
- Another way
- By car the town sits on the corridor between Takayama and Toyama, and there is free parking at the city hall and behind Hida-Furukawa Station. If you are driving through, Michi-no-Eki Alp Hida Furukawa on Route 41 is about seven minutes from the station and looks out toward Mt. Norikura.
- After you get off
- From Hida-Furukawa Station, walk into the town centre and you reach the water in about five minutes. The storehouses begin where the street meets the channel at Ichinomachi.