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Oze NP, Fukushima
Claim this place to tell your story your way.
Oze’s first boardwalk appeared on Ōe Marsh beside Ozenuma in 1952, after visiting officials sank waist-deep in bog. Its single plank was so narrow that hikers reportedly played rock-paper-scissors to decide who stepped off to pass.
Local pioneer Hirano Chōzō went alone to Tokyo in 1923 to petition the Home Minister against a hydropower plan that would flood Ozenuma and Ozegahara. The fight became part of the early story of Japan’s nature-conservation movement.
This lakeside was once a mountain marketplace: at Sanpeishita, villagers from Aizu and Joshu met along the Aizu–Numata route to trade rice, sake, salt and oil. Their 180-km road linked what are now Fukushima and Gunma.
A 3.55-km seasonal deer fence protects Ōe Marsh’s flowers. At Ozenuma’s edge, it becomes netting floated on the lake but kept out of sight from scenic viewpoints—a conservation barrier designed to disappear into the waterscape.
Nearby Ōe Marsh preserves a trace of the Boshin War: Aizu forces built a defensive earthwork there in 1868. It still stands beside the walking route, a reminder that this peaceful flower walk crosses a landscape once patrolled by opposing armies.
The 3 larches on Ōe Marsh crown a mound with 2 local legends: it is either a retainer’s grave from Prince Mochihito’s flight or an archery ground used by his brother. The present trees may be comparatively recent.
In 1914, Chōzōgoya gained fishing rights on Ozenuma and hatched kokanee (himemasu) eggs brought from Lake Towada. Trials with smelt, yamame trout and shrimp failed, the records say, for lack of food.
The Oze-numa thistle, Cirsium homolepis, has its scientific type locality at Ozenuma. This Japan-endemic wetland plant sends up upright purple flowerheads in August.
Oze-kohone is a small yellow water lily with a bright red center. Outside Oze, this distinctively marked plant is known only from Mount Gassan and parts of Hokkaido; Ozenuma’s wetlands are among its habitats.
Look for bright flashes along Ozenuma’s southern shore: visitor-center rangers identify them as schools of crucian carp, also seen around other lake edges. A cluster of tiny ripples may be fish circling just below the surface.
Oze pioneered Japan’s ‘carry your rubbish home’ campaign in 1972. The next year, more than 1,400 trash bins were removed—a striking conservation legacy behind the clean, fragile wetlands crossed by this boardwalk.
