Postcard from - Goryokaku Citadel, Hakodate, Hokkaido

Bird's eye view - Goryokaku

I have been meaning, trying, aiming to visit this iconic, un-Japanese structure for years and years - how to manage a dog-leg swoop on a work trip. Finally cracked it, but my well-thought out travel plan did not include a landlslide diversion further north (another story!).

Be brave - lean out!

This was a fortification was inspired by a Dutch design, and not necessarilly aimed at keeping the ever-encroaching foreigners at bay, defending the Tsuragu Strait. I think its primary function was to actually protect an emerging, 'modern' government (magistrate's office) from domestic forces trying to maintain their medieval mode of governance (with military factions untamed).

southern entrance highlights the low walls

The structure itself is impressively laid out, in a star/pentagonal shape, with five protuding bastions, all best viewed from the viewing tower nearby. You need a good head for heights to get the best photos, leaning out onto the glass... I couldn't, because my shoulders hurt ;)  On the ground, the low walls are impressively sturdy, and surrounded by a wide moat. I don't think there were ever any yagura (turrets) on the protruding bastions, though there were canon emplacements. The focal point of the defence is a fairly non-descript, single storey wooden office building, sitting in a depression in the middle of the grounds. Around it had been other buildings, including a small prison, which I'm sure was grim enough.

Completed in 1864, with ancilliary buildings added by 1866, it played an important role as the political center of Ezo (Hokkaido)..which only existed for a year.. It was handed over to the new Meiji government after the Taisei Hokan (restoration of imperial rule) in 1867. However, in October 1868 after the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate

Magistrate's Building

, it was occupied by the former shogunate's rebel army led by Enomoto Takeaki and became the stage for the Battle of Hakodate, to conclude the Boshin War.



Predictably, the army then took control of the place, relinquishing it only in 1897, no doubt reluctantly!