Island Kaminoseki, Yamaguchi, Japan
Cats in Iwaishima
A stone-walled island village in the Seto Inland Sea that has spent forty years saying no to a nuclear plant across the water, and whose lanes are full of cats. Not a cat island by marketing, a cat island by neglect of everything except the cats.
Where to find cats in Iwaishima: Iwaishima, a small island off Kaminoseki at the western end of the Seto Inland Sea, in Yamaguchi prefecture. When: Spring and autumn. The ferry from Murotsu runs a few times a day; check it, and the weather, the night before. Why here: A village of stone walls, elderly islanders and cats, famous in Japan for forty years of refusing a power station.
The short version
- Where
- Iwaishima, a small island off Kaminoseki at the western end of the Seto Inland Sea, in Yamaguchi prefecture
- When
- Spring and autumn. The ferry from Murotsu runs a few times a day; check it, and the weather, the night before
- How long
- A day trip works. Staying the night in the one guesthouse is the island
- What it costs
- The ferry. There is a shop, just, and a guesthouse. Bring most of what you need
- Why here
- A village of stone walls, elderly islanders and cats, famous in Japan for forty years of refusing a power station
What to bring
- The ferry timetableFrom Murotsu on the mainland, forty minutes, a few sailings a day. Miss the last one and you are staying.
- Lunch, and something for the guesthouseThe island has a small shop with short hours and one place to stay. Plan as if it had neither.
- Shoes for stone lanesThe village is a maze of lanes between walls of stone and earth, built against the winter wind. The cats sit on the walls.
- Respect for the argumentThe islanders have opposed the Kaminoseki nuclear plant since 1982. Signs and banners are everywhere. Read them; do not pose with them.
Why there are cats everywhere
Iwaishima is known in Japan for one thing: since 1982 its fishermen have refused to sell their sea to a nuclear power company. The cats came with the quiet.
The island is a small green hump at the western end of the Inland Sea, an hour by ferry from Kaminoseki, with a single village on the sheltered side. The village is old: lanes between walls of stone and clay built to break the winter wind, terraced fields climbing the hill behind, a shrine, a school with no pupils, and a population of a few hundred, most of them past seventy. Every four years it holds the Kanmai, a festival for the sailors from Kyushu who were shipwrecked here a thousand years ago, and boats come from across the sea for it.
In 1982 the Chugoku Electric Power Company proposed a nuclear plant on the mainland shore directly across the strait, four kilometres away, and the island said no. It has been saying no since: the fishing cooperative has refused the compensation, the islanders have held a weekly protest march for decades, and the plant has never been built. The story made Iwaishima a symbol, and a documentary, and a place people visit to see what refusing looks like after forty years.
What it looks like is a village with more cats than people. The islanders feed them, the lanes suit them, and the photographs on this page, a black-and-white series by a visitor, are of an old woman walking her lane with cats following, and cats in patches of sun between the stone walls. It is not a cat island in the tourist sense; there is no shop selling cat souvenirs and no crowd. It is a village that has kept its cats the way it has kept everything else, by staying put.
The walk
The ferry from Murotsu, the village lanes, the shrine and the terraces above, and back for the boat. A day, at the village鈥檚 pace, which is slow.
- From Yanai or IwakuniBus or car to Kaminoseki, Murotsu port60 minKaminoseki is at the end of a long peninsula. A car is easiest; the bus exists.
- From Murotsu portFerry to Iwaishima40 minA few sailings a day. Check the timetable and the weather; the crossing is cancelled in rough seas.
- From HiroshimaTrain to Yanai, then bus or taxi to Kaminoseki150 minA long day trip. The guesthouse makes it a proper visit.
Murotsu port
The mainland harbour at Kaminoseki, where the Iwaishima ferry leaves. The proposed plant site is across the bay from here; the banners begin on the quay.
Island cats, on the far side of the crossing.Gemini st., CC BY 2.0 The village lanes
Off the ferry into the maze of stone-and-clay walls. Walk every lane; they are short and they all connect. Cats on the walls, in the sun patches, and following whoever has the bag.
A sun patch between the walls. The walls were built for the wind; the patch is for the cats.Gemini st., CC BY 2.0 The shrine and the terraces
Up behind the village to the shrine where the Kanmai festival is held, and on to the stone terraces climbing the hill, some still farmed, most gone to trees. The view is the strait and the site the island has refused.
Above the village. The strait, the mainland, and the argument.Gemini st., CC BY 2.0
Same numbers as the list. Worth keeping open on your phone.
The cats you will meet
Japanese island cats: tabby, black and calico, thick-coated for the sea wind, fed by elderly islanders and comfortable in stone lanes that have not changed in a century. Sociable with anyone carrying a bag, asleep in the sun patches the rest of the day.
Lane cats
On the stone walls and in the sun patches.
The village鈥檚. They know every resident by the sound of the gate.
Escort cats
Following an islander down the lane.
Whoever has the bag. It is not you.
Terrace cats
Up on the old fields above the village.
The wilder ones. Seen from below.
Everybody says It is a cat island like Aoshima.
Actually It is a village with a lot of cats and a forty-year argument, and nobody markets either. There is no cat-themed anything. Come for the island and the islanders; the cats are what a village that stayed looks like.
How not to be the annoying one
- The islanders are elderly and the island is theirs. A greeting, a bow, and no photographs of people without asking.
- Do not feed. The residents do, and a stranger鈥檚 food in the lanes changes a small system.
- The protest banners are real and current. Read them. Do not pose with them.
- Buy something at the shop if it is open. There is not much else keeping it so.
- Be on the quay before the ferry. It does not wait, and the guesthouse is one room.
