Nakagawa-2

It's south of Nagano Prefecture. Nakagawa-mura is a village with a population of 4,800 in the valley. Even though it is a valley, this is Inadani Valley as called the largest valley in Japan. The scenery spread out and the wind is gentle and comfortable. The first-class river, the Tenryu River, runs through the center of the village, meandering between two lofty Alps. Protected by the terrain like deep-pocketed cultivated by the uplifted mountains and the gentle meandering river, people's lives go on gently and the hours move on.

Nagano Prefecture has the image of a snowy area. However, in the south region, the snow accumulation is generally small and the sunshine duration is long. Nakagawa-mura may be a village that symbolizes the ease of living in Inadani. In this land where the southern limit of fruit trees in the cold region and the northern limit of fruit trees in the warm regions overlap, various fruits grow in every season and rice cultivation is also flourishing. Perhaps because of such fruitfulness, all the people are generous-hearted and warm. Both of successive villagers and people moved from other place enjoy together regardless of gender or generation. You can meet such scenes here and there.
They joined the “Most Beautiful Village in Japan” union in 2008. This is the second time since 2014 to appear in “Quarterly Beautiful Villages in Japan” in 6 years. If express the feeling of this interview with Nakagawa-mura in a single word, “Mebuki (green shoots)”. The practice and efforts that have been quietly repeated so far have broken the hard bark and started to form soft flower buds here and there in the village. Moreover, in this era of frequent occurrence of the event that have to consider human behavior for nature like abnormal weather and new viruses, it was even symbolic that there were many efforts that took sustainability into consideration, such as the wooden station which foster new communities while stopping the mountain devastation, the environment friendly campsite having forest and hot springs, and the agriculture that does not relying on agricultural chemicals or chemical fertilizers.
Although “Mt.Jinmagata”, which has a superb view called a village landmark, is now one of the most popular spots in the prefecture, the true charm of this village is in the casual daily living of villagers live in foot of a mountain. After a few days here, everyone will surely notice it. I felt that I received the light for a small but certain future in this beautiful village in this big valley.

Interviewed in July, 2020