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Saikai NPKujukushima, Nagasaki
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Kujukushima means “many islands,” not exactly 99: citizen volunteers counted 208 in 2001, counting only land that stays above the year’s highest tide and supports plants. Tenkaiho looks over this island maze.
Before Tenkaiho, this hill was Mujinabara (むじな原), with terraces for tea, vegetables, sweet potatoes and wheat. A local resident remembers children climbing a great rock for island views; the observatory was built in 1982.
In 2018, peninsula residents remade Tenkaiho’s farm shop as a community kitchen: mothers supplied garden-grown potatoes, fishermen line-caught fish, and locals created Tawara croquettes and fish-and-chips.
Tenkaiho’s one-hectare flower garden changes costume twice a year: about 150,000 rapeseed blossoms in spring, then about 150,000 cosmos in autumn. Sasebo manages seedlings to keep the bloom season consistent.
The flowers are a starting line, too: 4 peninsula communities have organized spring and autumn walks from Tenkaiho since 2003. Routes lead through seaside hamlets and coves to traces of the area’s former coal boom.
The trail from Tenkaiho reaches Kamenoko Island, once a pearl-farming site joined to shore by a wooden bridge. The bridge has decayed; in early spring, people still gather sea lettuce on the nearby reefs.
On a trail from Tenkaiho, local worship continues at Konpira Shrine: every November, residents twist straw from the new rice harvest into a fresh sacred rope and hold Niiname-sai, giving thanks for abundance.
The Tenkaiho trail network leads into a quiet military past: 3 Sasebo Fortress sites were built on the peninsula to guard the naval harbor, but never fought a battle. Their brick, stone and concrete remains still linger in the woods.
The seasonal flower carpet is tended by Team Warabi no Sato, a local work-support organization with a Sasebo City contract to manage Tenkaiho’s rapeseed and cosmos gardens.
Tenkaiho’s cosmos seeds also travel into Sasebo homes: seeds gathered here in 2023 became 200 free packets in 2024, packed by staff at the city’s disability-inclusive Challenge Room. The sharing project began during COVID.
