Our ancestors have always depended on wooden boats whether
to cross the river or to set out sea to catch fish, whether we
recall the situation in Japan or any other country. It is understood
that the canoe was the earliest dug-out boat-like-boat that resembles
the shape that we are currently familiar with. Thereafter the
shape and size has metamorphosed over thousands and thousands
of years they continued to evolve differently around the world.
The shape of these boats in Japan have also developed into a
shape that varied somewhat from its counterpart of the West.

All boats other than the dug-out canoe are generally referred
to as structural boats. Simply put, Western boats were built
with a backbone like a human bein g,that came with a keel that
ran from tip to tip through the middle of the vessel. And on
the keel foundation are several dozens of rib-like frames that
also resembled the physique of a human being. This skeletal structure
was then finished with an outerboard that was hammered on the
frame in general structu revessels. The size of these boats ranged
to as big as enormous British battleships and British/American
clippers that developed as the last of its kind speed sailboats,
with some extending longer than 100m and weighing a tonnage between
4,000 to 5,000 tons.

In Japan the first step away from the canoe was a wooden boat
with a flatboard on the floor, then a board was obliquely angled
against the side of that boar d to create a boat. In other words,
a board was first placed as the flooring,and then flatboards
were placed on both sides as walls of that floorboard to build
a boat. This closely resembles the procedures to make a box.
Though the number of ledge boards used varied according to the
size of the boat, the structure was finished by placing a ledge
on top of another ledge to increase the vessel in size. The Kitamae
boats on display here at this museum feature a compilation of
that technology.

These types of wooden boats are no longer being built from
about 30 years ago with the introduction and development of FRP
(Fiber Reinforced Plastic). Wooden fishing boats previously built
are no longer seen as frequently in the coasts of Aomori Prefecture,
either. As I witnessed the limited number of existing boats on
the path of extinction I realized that unless a collection to
preserve these assets were made today, that the opportunity would
never be available. This is why I collected wooden boats from
Northern Tohoku and Toshima Island in Hokkaido. As my collection
grew, I found that the flooring of Japanese boats from this region
varied from fishing boats from Western Japan.

The Northern boats were finished with flatboards and didn’t have
a so-called covering on the floor. These boats were directly
carved from lumber instead, and came to be known today as the
Mudama Style. These boats were directly carved from wood because
coastal waters of the Northern region are more harsh than the
South and thus, required stronger boatbeds to venture these waters.
What’s more, the abundance of big trees to acquire Mudama materials
were also quite abundant until recently, unlike the situation
in the South. This feature has become known as the major characteristic
of Northern fishing boats. In 1997 November 67 of the boats collected
here were nationally designated by the Ministry of Education,
Science and Culture as Important Tangible Ethnic Cultural Assets.