Former Yamaya Family Residence Wooden Storehouse

A Timber Granary from the First Years of Rice in Ishikari

The Former Yamaya Family Residence Wooden Storehouse (旧山谷家住宅木倉, Kyū Yamaya-ke Jūtaku Kikura, described locally as an itakura or plank storehouse) is a two-storey timber granary built in 1911 in the Takaoka district of Hachiman-chō, Ishikari City, Hokkaido, and was listed as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 6 March 2024.

Its recorded floor area is forty-two square metres, a little over twice that of the stone granary standing to its northeast on the same farmstead. Two granaries, one timber and one stone, built twenty-seven years apart and both holding grain, tell you something about the household that put them up.

The building faces east under a sheet-metal gable roof, with the doorway set at the centre of that east elevation and clapboard cladding running horizontally across the walls. The Agency for Cultural Affairs records that it held rice and other grains, which is a slightly broader remit than the stone granary's, and the interior arrangement reflects it.

Why a Farm Here Needed a Granary This Size

Takaoka was not obvious farmland. The district occupies a terrace ten to twenty metres above sea level at the northeastern edge of the old Ishikari town area, and before settlement it carried natural forest worked lightly for charcoal. Twenty households, one hundred and six people from Yamaguchi Prefecture, arrived in 1885 and began clearing it. A second Yamaguchi contingent followed in 1895, joined over the next years by settlers from Tokushima, Toyama, Akita, Ishikawa, Niigata, Aomori, Fukui and Ehime.

Buckwheat, wheat, foxtail millet and barnyard millet went in first, because those crops would grow on unfertilised ground. Rice was the harder proposition this far north. In 1889 a settler named Takenaka Yoemon brought a paddy crop to harvest at Takaoka, the first success with wet rice recorded in Ishikari, and cultivation spread from there. Water supply stayed unreliable until 1930, when the Gonosawa and Takatomi reservoirs were completed by damming tributaries of the Shiratsukari River.

The Yamaya family entered this landscape with capital already made elsewhere. According to the Ishikari Kominka Tourism project, which now manages the farmstead, the family built its fortune in the salmon fishery and took up farming at Gonosawa during the last years of the Meiji era. The main house and the large barn that doubled as a stable date from 1910. This granary went up the following year. Having two purpose-built rice stores on one property, the project notes, marks the Yamaya household out as a substantial landholder.

How the Building Is Put Together

The structural interest of this granary lies inside, in one decision. A single free-standing post rises through the middle of the building to carry the ridge beam. Rather than framing the roof off the perimeter walls alone, the builder ran the load down through the centre of the plan, which allowed a clear span across a floor that would spend its life carrying sacks of grain.

Both floors are boarded. At the south end of the ground floor the space is partitioned into three compartments for grain, so that different crops or different seasons' harvests could be kept apart without mixing. The upper floor was left open and used for general storage.

Outside, the horizontal clapboard is worth a look for what it says about maintenance. Wooden cladding in this climate needs periodic replacement, and the granary was repaired around 1975, roughly sixty years into its life. That the Agency registered it anyway reflects the logic of the registration system, which accepts sympathetic repair as the price of keeping a building standing and in use.

One modern element is visible in the Agency's own photograph, captioned as showing the east front with the shutter closed. A roller shutter now protects the central doorway. It is not original, and it is a reminder that this remained a functioning farm building long after 1911.

Seeing It, and What Else Is on the Site

Practical expectations first. The wooden granary is privately owned by AI Kenchiku Co., Ltd. and its interior is not open to the public; no published information indicates a schedule of special openings. What draws visitors to this address is the neighbouring building.

The stone granary of 1938, registered on the same day, operates as the Higuchi Kiichirō Memorial Museum and opens Thursday to Sunday, 11:00 to 15:00, with admission of 500 yen for high school students and above and free entry for younger visitors. Winter visits run on the same four days by advance reservation only. The former main house and barn have been converted into Solii, a guesthouse let one building at a time, so an overnight stay on the farmstead is possible.

The wooden granary stands southwest of the stone one on the same farmstead, so anyone visiting the museum is already in the right place. Ask the staff on the day what can be viewed and photographed, since the granary is in private use and access is at the owner's discretion.

Getting there means driving. Takaoka has no railway station and no useful bus service. Allow about 45 minutes from Sapporo Station, roughly 15 minutes from JR Ishikari-Tōbetsu Station, and about an hour and twenty minutes from New Chitose Airport. Late September and October are the season worth choosing, when the paddies below the terrace turn and the granary sits against harvested fields much as it would have done when it was still being filled.