Urugi（売木）: Uru（売） means sell and gi（木）means wood. Therefore, Urugi（売木） literally means “sell wood” and as its name shows, Urugi village has had enough wood to sell untill today.
As Japan is a mountainous country (about 67% is covered by mountains), mountains are a familiar existence for Japanese and in the past, people made almost everything with wood and bamboo. However the abundance and importance of wood in Urugi village is huge and exceptional. Because surprisingly 88% of its land is covered with woods. It’s much higher than the average of the Japanese archipelago(67%).
During the feudal period (17-19th century), a special career group called Kijishi placed themselves in Urugi village.
Kijishi is a craftsman who processes wood to manufacture wooden items such as bowls and trays using a special wheel. It means that they can handle wood just like clay. What a marvelous technique! Undoubtedly, Kijishi is a highly professional group and their existence itself testifies the quality of Urugi wood.
100-year Hinoki project
They have launched the “100-Year HInoki Project” to create something that will last more than 100 years.
As their first step, they started cutting down the Hinoki trees to get material wood for the creation.
What is noteworthy is that it is not simple cutting.
The man in the picture (the promoter of the project) is cutting the tree down using only an axe and a saw, which is a quite rare method to cut trees in Japan. Although it took much longer than he had initially expected (over two hours), he carried it through.
Let’s imagine the process of his hard work and the spectacular sight of the 100- year- old tree finally falling.
Urugi International Centre
The Urugi International Center (short UIC) is a 115+ years old traditional Japanese Alpine house (kominka) that once contributed to the production of silk.As of 2017, after staying uninhabited for more than 10 years, partial renovation efforts made it usable again and gave it a new purpose.
