 One of the Hokkosha pioneers to come to Kitami was Ito Kosuke. He was born
in a hamlet deep in the mountains of central Shikoku - Kuwase in Motokawa
village, Tosa county, in the far north of Kochi Prefecture. There he cultivated
a tiny pocket of land and managed to make a meagre living, supplementing
his income by working in the mountain forests. |
| That region was often in the path of typhoons. When battered by their fierce winds and rain, 'crops which we had worked body and soul to raise were wiped out in a single night - so much devastation that we couldn't bear to look at it - and we would get no food for the following year. In really bad years we couldn't even harvest enough for seed.' They suffered such experiences time and again. And the piece of land was far too small to be divided up among sons when they became adults and needed to make an independent living. |
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| To Kosuke, the terms in the prospectus for the Hokko Settlement which the recruitment agent showed him were undeniably attractive, even allowing for the hard work that would be needed to break in new land. They offered [ In the first year, an allotment of around five cho (about five hectares) of virgin land.] |
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| On 4 April 1897, Kosuke was one of three hundred and fifty people aboard the 720 ton cargo ship Koyo Maru which set sail from Urado Port in Kochi under the leadership of the deputy chairman of the Hokkosha Company, Sawamoto Kusuya. The vessel then called at Susaki, where three hundred more people came aboard. |
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| During the voyage there was an outbreak of measles which took several lives. Kosuke's daughter Kinu was one who caught the sickness. On the eighth day after leaving Shimonoseki, the ship reached Otaru. After sailing four more days and nights via Wakkanai, they got within hailing distance of Abashiri. But to their great disappointment they could not get ashore. The port there was still blocked by sea ice and they had to go back to Wakkanai. They were finally able to land at Abashiri on the 1st of May. They rested the following day and on 3 May set off from Abashiri along the central road, arriving at their final destination on 7 May. |
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| The housing provided by the settlement company was just grass huts with two or three rooms. The sky was visible through gaps in the roof, there was an open hearth in the living room and the floor uneven, with grass mats thrown over rough logs. Another mat hung at the entrance as a door. The evening meal was eaten by lamp light. |
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| Nobody had yet come to live in the hut next door. Kosuke and his family put a gun and an axe by their pillow but could get hardly any sleep, worried 'that a bear might break in and attack us at any minute.' |
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| Occasionally a strange sound, between a howl and a cry, echoed through the dense forest. When at last the first signs of daylight appeared, Kosuke headed out into the forest to investigate. The origin of the sound varied as he walked, so he realized with relief that it was only a bird. |
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Right from that day, they began clearing bamboo grass from around the hut and scattered seeds of millet and buckwheat, raking earth over them with a hoe. There was no time to make proper seed furrows. |
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| They got seed potatoes and buckwheat from Abashiri Prison, and the Hokkosha
company obtained millet and corn for them from Ishikari. |
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| However those crops were ravaged by rats and mice and frosts fell before what remained were ready to harvest. Kosuke and others managed to earn enough money to keep themselves alive by helping build a parade ground for the soldier-pioneers and by felling trees to build huts for new arrivals expected the following year. |
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| In early summer, the forest greenery grew so high and dense that sunlight could scarcely break through. It felt as dark as in the bottom of a well or inside a barrel. Many of the wives became so depressed that they stood in the shade and cried. Nothing would comfort them. |
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| In September 1964, the writer was able to meet Kosuke, then aged eighty-nine and living as a farmer in Kunneppu. White-haired and wearing a large padded kimono, he showed me many records of his life history. After all the trials of pioneering, he was still active in the local community. I felt I did not have the words to describe his undaunted spirit. |
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| (from the Kitami City Newsletter, July 1996) |