Otaru Canal

photo by tsushima · CC BY 3.0

photo by 663highland · CC BY 2.5

The canal, completed in 1923, was meant to disappear in 1966: a civic battle saved it.

Passers-by walk along a canal 1,140 metres long, lit in the evening by 63 gas lamps, with the Meiji-period stone warehouses on the opposite bank. It is not an intact canal: a 1966 plan meant to fill it in to make a road, and only a citizens’ movement won, in 1986, today's compromise: half filled in and half left as water with a footpath.

Dug so that ships could unload goods directly into the warehouses of the port of Otaru, the canal was completed in 1923. With the decline of port traffic it lost its purpose, and after the war the municipality planned to fill it in to make a main road: the 1966 proposal met opposition from residents, and the dispute was settled only in 1986 with the current solution, a compromise between the two halves.

ℹ️ The path along the canal is a public way, open at any time; the warehouses converted into shops and restaurants keep their own hours.

🚉 Otaru · 11 min walk

Sources: ja.wikipedia.org

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