Snowy scenes and more

OK, so let's talk about these photos.

In the mountains outside of Toyama, which is North West of Tokyo and on the Sea of Japan, there are the "historical villages of Gokayama", known for their old, thatched roof houses.  I think it fair to say most  people probably visit them in any season other than winter, and it seems you certainly won't be overrun with other tourists if you do go while they are covered in snow:  

In the smaller village we went to, there was a house set up as a small museum (second photo above), and it contained this example of old style "winter footwear".  I am curious as to how warm they might keep feet.  

Truth be told, I thought the effort put into the on site history stuff was pretty minimal, but it was interesting to learn that the local industry in these old settlements used to be silkworm raising (in the attics of the houses), and making saltpeter for use in guns.

 

I didn't go into the mini "saltpeter museum" house, but this is how it was made (and the process is very  different from what I would have guessed): 

Below the floorboards, around the irori sunken hearth, people would dig holes 2.7 meters deep, and fill them with soil, mugwort and other mountain plants, and silkworm waste. Over the following four years, this mixture would decay and undergo further processes, eventually becoming saltpeter. Saltpeter was then used as the main ingredient for gunpowder for rifles. 

I need to understand this better: 

Traditionally, one of the main industries in the Gokayama region was the production of
saltpeter (potassium nitrate) from the mineral niter, an essential ingredient in
gunpowder. The saltpeter industry operated for over 300 years during the rule of the
Kaga domain in Gokayama, growing exponentially after the introduction of European
matchlock guns in 1542. The production of saltpeter in the area was kept secret even
from the shogunate (the ruling military leadership of Japan) in order to strengthen the
defense of the Kaga domain, which bought up large amounts of saltpeter every year.
Gokayama was an ideal location for secret niter production as the area was isolated and
much of it remained unexplored.

 

Saltpeter was created in a hole up to 2 meters deep under the irori fireplaces of the
gassho-zukuri (steep thatched roof) houses of the Gokayama region. The hole was filled
with a mixture of materials including straw, soil, mugwort, and silkworm excrement,
then left to ferment for around five years. The irori fireplaces were used to keep the
materials warm during the fermentation process, and the materials in the hole were
mixed together once a year to expose them to air and to add in extra ingredients. Over
time, calcium nitrate formed in the soil through the nitrification of bacteria. To extract
potassium nitrate from the soil mixture, water and soil were mixed together, and the
water into which the calcium nitrate had dissolved was concentrated through heating.
Grass and wood ash were then added to the concentrate to remove impurities. The
potassium carbonate contained in the ash reacts with the calcium nitrate in the
concentrate to form potassium nitrate and calcium carbonate. The calcium carbonate
precipitates because it is insoluble in water. The liquid is then filtered, boiled down and
condensed, and then cooled to obtain coarse saltpeter crystals. The collected saltpeter
crystals were sold to the Kaga domain and delivered to their warehouse in Kanazawa. 

 

Man, that's complicated!  And who worked that process out??   The Wikipedia entry is very badly written, and doesn't explain it.   In fact, it's rather hard to get a single site that explains it clearly - this one notes that England got the manufacturing idea for it from a German engineer (who got paid by Elizabeth 1 for the process);  this site says China invented gunpowder, and Japan got the use of it in guns from the Portugeuse, but doesn't explain how the Japan learnt the method of in-ground fermentation for making saltpeter.  

 

Oh well, I digress.

 

Another nearby town had several guesthouses you could stay in, and as such, the place seemed a little more "lived in" than the first small village:  

 

 

It's all very, very pretty, of course.   I might add more photos later...