The Storage Shed/Window of the Traditional Herring Fishing in Hokkaido

Yoshiharu Tsukamoto Laboratory (Tokyo Institute of Technology)

24 Mar 2021

A flat wooden fishing boat shed in the Historical Village of Hokkaido. The storage shed is a facility used to temporarily store the obtained herring. After the fishing season, it was used as a warehouse for storing large fishing gear and processing tools such as boats and oars. The building was restored with reference to the existing storage sheds in Shakotan Town and Otaru City and to those built in the Meiji and Taisho areas, where herring fishing thrived, around the Shakotan Peninsula. It was designed with a drop-board structure, wherein a board is inserted within the groove of a pillar. By grasping the drop-board’s handle and removing it from the groove built into the top of the pillar, part of the pillar can be removed. By removing the drop-board and the pillar, boats and fishing equipment can be moved in and out. Herring can be handled similarly during the “herring crushing” process.

Historical Village of Hokkaido – Storage Shed
(Warehouse/Sapporo City, Hokkaido)

This article is an excerpt from “Window Workology,” a joint research project concerning windows and the behaviors around them done in collaboration with Tokyo Institute of Technology’s Yoshiharu Tsukamoto Laboratory.