Passerelle was recently invited by JTB to consult about some of the tourism resources available on the mountain side of Hakusan City (Ishikawa Prefecture, south of Kanazawa). As always in Japan, as soon as someone opens the doors for you and/or tells you where to scratch the surface, you feel as if you found a gold mine, often not visible through the naked eye … and difficult to capture with a smartphone camera. As a matter of fact, the Treasure is the inspiring story told by inhabitants, about the nature surrounding them and the culture developed over the centuries, how they shaped what you can see and feel. Beside Mother Nature, the most valuable asset of Japanese regions is their people. Out of the 100 houses that make the Chugu settlement, one of the starting points of the pilgrimage to highly sacred Hakusan (“Mont Blanc” in French), 20 only are inhabited today, and I do not need to tell you the residents’ average age. Our society needs to find ways to keep those who would want to in their homes as long as possible and get what they know transmitted to a new generation. Passerelle is happy to be able to tell part of that story now. (Picture of Mr. I. in Chugu, owner of a local onsen ryokan showing us a visitors’ registry from Meiji times and other treasures at his home)
