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Sanriku Fukkō NP, Miyagi
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After roughly 90 quiet years, the Ayukawa watchpost here spotted 3 Russian exploration ships sailing south in 1739—the only recorded alert from Sendai’s coastal watch network before its early-Meiji abolition.
Kinkasan, the “golden” island visible from the park, never produced gold itself. Its famous shrine honors the 749 gold discovery made inland at Wakuya—a surprising twist behind the island’s name and legend.
Across the strait, Kinkasan was once closed to women. Its 1843 first torii on the Oshika Peninsula marked where women stopped to worship before turning back; the island’s ban was lifted in 1869.
When Ayukawa became a whaling base in the late Meiji era, this same summit gained a new maritime job: returning whaling boats used御番所山 as a landmark to find their way home.
Down in Ayukawa, whale tatsuta-age—seasoned, fried whale—is more than a novelty: it was a school-lunch favorite locals remember, and one family later made it its signature dish at community events.
This lookout belonged to a 5-post coastal warning network. Each post was usually assigned 5 foot soldiers, with 2 watching at once; daytime gunshots and nighttime light signals relayed sightings inland.
Ayukawa’s Whale Festival began in 1953 with two acts of remembrance: honoring people lost at sea and holding memorial rites for whales. It has grown into a day of local music and dance.
唐船 (tōsen, “foreign vessel”) first meant Chinese and Korean ships; as European ships began appearing, Sendai broadened it to mean foreign ships generally. The hilltop post’s name records that change.
The old ship lookout has a surprising modern companion: the park’s log-cabin observation hut is used for birdwatching and astronomy. From this hill, attention turns both to the sea and to the sky.
