Hōheikyō Dam

This guide to Hoheikyo Dam outside Sapporo follows the wandering monk Miizumi Jozan, who was led into this gorge by Ainu guides in eighteen sixty-six and built a bath, a bridge and a road around a hot spring he believed could heal. It jumps a century forward to the engineers who dammed the same river deep in the gorge Jozan once walked, and to the tourist association that petitioned Japan's construction ministry over what to call the new lake. Read the two kanji painted at the water's edge before you hear the rest.