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Fuji-Hakone-Izu NP, Tokyo
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In 1930, 75-year-old Miyagawa Tan built a kerosene lighthouse and 200 stone steps at Takamori. She kept lighting it every night until she was 88, guiding fishing boats offshore.
Island legend says a boatman wrongly accused of stealing tax salt died in a salt pan, and his cat became a salt-devouring bakeneko. Later settlers prayed at Daio Shrine so they could keep cats for rat control.
In Mikama Bay, bubbles rising from the seabed are carbon dioxide. Scientists study this natural seep as a field model of a more acidic future ocean and how marine communities may change.
Shikinejima’s traditional fish tataki is made from minced fish such as flying fish and blue mackerel scad, with the flesh separated from the bones first. Drop it into soup, and it floats when cooked.
To secure fresh water, fewer than 20 islanders and helpers from Niijima spent 3 years building a broad, sloping well. Its winding path resembles a snail—maimai in Japanese—and the settlement grew around it.
Jinata Onsen’s source emerges at about 80°C. Its natural pools become bathable where the hot spring water mixes with seawater—a dramatic meeting of geothermal heat and the Pacific.
Until the late 19th century, Shikinejima had no permanent residents. People from neighboring Niijima used its fishing grounds, gathered food, made tax salt, and visited its hot springs; settlement began in 1887.
About 14,000 years ago, thick rhyolite lava flowed into the sea around Shikinejima. Researchers link underwater explosions to the island’s crater-like bays and broken volcanic-rock formations.
Artifacts from Shikinejima’s Fukinoe and Ishijirokawa sites show people lived here in the Jomon period. At Fukinoe, archaeological work identified areas associated with both ritual and ordinary dwelling.
Tojinzushiro is not a castle ruin. The island’s tourism association explains that the old word zushiro means a place where people or fish gather—a fitting name for the fishing ground beneath its cliffs.
A popular tale says a 1703 tsunami split Shikinejima from Niijima. But a 1702 map already shows 2 islands, and a historical review notes the story may have emerged during a later dispute over ownership.
The Ministry of the Environment lists the waters around Ashitsuki Port as having the Izu Islands’ only hijiki seaweed community. It grows among other seaweeds that form underwater forests.
When Yosano Akiko visited in 1938, she wrote a poem about a rock with waves passing through it, describing Shikinejima as an uninhabited island. Tokyo later marked her visit with a monument.
The inumaki at Toyoji Temple stands 28 meters tall, with a trunk 5.3 meters around, and is a Tokyo natural monument. Locals recall children eating its dark-red fruit; birds now feed on it.
Island tradition says Ukita Hideie, defeated at Sekigahara and exiled to Hachijojima, waited for calmer weather at Tomari Cove before continuing south. The sheltered harbor was useful long before the island was settled.
Near the hot springs, Yukagen no Ana—the “temperature-check hole”—lets warmth from underground rise to the surface. The island’s cats have their own use for it: they curl up there to warm themselves in winter.
