Yokohama, Aomori

Rapeseed fields line the coastal strip between the Mutsu Bay and the ridge of Fukigoshi Eboshi, yellow in the growing season, pressed later into the canola oil sold under the name 御なたね油 at the roadside station whose locals call 菜の花プラザ. The station's restaurant, 鮮菜, keeps the produce close: scallops pulled from the bay, sea cucumber processed in the way that once moved through Edo-period trade routes north to south. Yokohama-cho sits on the Shimokita Peninsula's midsection, a narrow band of habitable land between water and mountain, and that geography has shaped everything from the castle built here in the sixteenth century to the three fishing harbors — 横浜, 源氏ヶ浦, 鶏沢 — that still land the catch.

The town's sea cucumber, 横浜ナマコ, carries the name of the place itself, which is one way a fishing economy makes itself legible. Further inland, the slopes of 吹越烏帽子 hold a dense stand of wild azaleas and a summit view that takes in both bay and mountain range. At the edge of town, wind turbines turn steadily in the Daizuda district. In July, the village of よこはまホタル村 holds its firefly and spring-water festival — the Genji firefly reaches what is noted as its northern habitat limit here. These are not spectacular attractions so much as the ordinary coordinates of a place that has been continuously inhabited since the Jomon period, quietly trading, fishing, and flowering along the same strip of coast.