Origins of the Nikko Sugi Cedar Avenue

Tokugawa Ieyasu and the History of the Nikko Sugi Cedar Avenue
Nikko’s tree-lined avenue is closely linked to Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616), founder of the Tokugawa shogunate.

Ieyasu emerged as a powerful warlord at the end of the 1500s. A century prior, the ruling government had begun its slow collapse, and the country had descended into civil war. Factions of regional warlords, warrior monks, and armed peasants began fighting all over the fractured country.
Ieyasu capitalized on this chaotic period. Although he had spent his childhood as a political hostage, he rose to seize command of a sizable territory. Ieyasu was a clever tactician who made and broke alliances, pitted his rivals against each other, and maneuvered himself into positions of power. In 1600, Ieyasu’s coalition won a decisive battle on the Sekigahara Plain, and in 1603, he established himself as shogun. He and his descendants would rule Japan for the next 250 years.

Establishment of the Five Routes

As shogun, one of Ieyasu’s first concerns was transportation infrastructure. In 1601, he ordered the creation of a vast road network. Developing and expanding the roads took many decades, during which the shogunate built checkpoints to monitor traffic and designated way stations where travelers could find food, new horses, and beds. Under this system, secondary roads funneled traffic to five main highways that all converged on Edo (now Tokyo). These major roads were referred to as the “five routes” (gokaido).

The gokaido system was vital to the movement of goods, people, and information. Through its network of way stations and checkpoints, the shogunate was able to exert influence far from the capital, and the roads themselves could be used to quickly dispatch troops to quell an uprising or settle disputes.

Nikko Toshogu Shrine and Masatsuna’s Gift Tokugawa Ieyasu died in 1616, having just eliminated his last political rival. His spirit was enshrined in Nikko, where it is venerated as Tosho Daigongen, the “Great Shining Gongen of the East.” The third shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu (1604–1651), spent lavishly to expand and beautify the shrine, which is known today as Nikko Toshogu.

Countless pilgrims and numerous Tokugawa descendants came to pay their respects at Nikko Toshogu. Those journeying to the shrine took the Nikko Kaido Road, one of the gokaido, or “five routes.” Each year, the imperial family sent a representative from Kyoto to make offerings to Ieyasu’s spirit, and an official route, the Reiheishi Kaido, was established for the journey.

In 1625, Matsudaira Masatsuna (1576–1648) began a project to line the approach to Nikko Toshogu with sugi cedar trees. Masatsuna was a devoted retainer of the Tokugawa family and was entrusted with the important role of recording and conserving Ieyasu’s personal effects. He ordered the planting of thousands of sugi trees along the three roads to the shrine. More than 20 years later, the project was completed by his son Masanobu (1621–1693).

Protecting the Nikko Sugi Cedar Avenue

It has been 400 years since the first sugi cedars were planted along the roads to Nikko Toshogu, but the trees will need support and protection to reach their next century. Fewer than a quarter of the 50,000 sugi that originally stood along the avenue are still standing today. No single cause is responsible for their decline. Some sugi were blown down by typhoons or toppled by earthquakes, others burned during the many fires of the 1600s and 1700s, and some fell victim to pests and infections. Most of the trees, however, have been lost to modern development.

A 1989 study brought the problem into alarming focus: More and more trees were dying. Until the turn of the twentieth century, around 40 trees died annually. But between 1901 and 1926, the number rose to 65. A surge of conservationist fervor briefly brought the numbers down, but many sugi were cleared after World War II. Air pollution worsened as tens of thousands of cars took to the roads in the decades that followed, and by the 1980s, as many as 125 trees were dying each year.

Present-Day Conservation Work
Today, the number of sugi has stabilized at just over 12,000 trees. Since 1996, the prefectural government has enacted widespread measures to protect the remaining sugi, and numerous volunteers have given their time and energy to keep the trees healthy.

Dr. Suzuki Heima (1906–1983), a forestry professor at Utsunomiya University, played a key role in the movement to conserve the sugi. Suzuki personally collected data on the sugi, noting each tree’s height, circumference, and the shape of its branches. He also studied the soil and took measurements of its layers. Suzuki’s research into the trees’ failing health revealed that the roots were particularly vulnerable.

In the years since, Tochigi Prefecture has enacted several of Suzuki’s recommendations, including the construction of a bypass to divert traffic away from the trees in 2021. To protect the trees’ roots, the local government has begun purchasing land on either side of the avenue to create a 20-meter buffer zone. Concrete frames have been buried under the avenue to keep the ground from becoming compacted by vehicle and foot traffic.

Community Efforts
Since the early 2000s, volunteers have taken on the laborious tasks of cutting back overgrowth, clearing debris, and maintaining the avenue. Their generous efforts are vital to the continued health of the sugi. To help cover upkeep costs, businesses and individuals can temporarily purchase one of the trees through the Adopt-A-Sugi program. For as long as the benefactor retains ownership, they will have their name recorded on a board of donors and a special plaque will be attached to their adopted tree. The money is placed in the Sugi Avenue Protection Fund, and the interest it generates will support the conservation project. (Donors have the option to return ownership for a full refund.)

Western Voices on Nineteenth-Century Nikko

Nikko’s stately rows of sugi cedars were already over 200 years old when Westerners saw them for the first time. Since 1639, Japan had refused entry to all but a handful of foreign visitors, and its sights and scenery were virtually unknown to the wider world. In 1853, the United States sent warships to encourage Japan to open its borders, and other Western powers followed suit. By 1874, ships from many countries were permitted to dock at Japanese ports, and the government began issuing travel permits to curious tourists. Many early visitors to Nikko recorded their impressions in diaries and travelogues.

In May [1870,] the wild and picturesque tract of Nikko was “opened,” to use a Japanese expression, by Sir Harry, accompanied by Lady Parkes, and the great temples and monuments of the founders of the Tokugawa dynasty were for the first time fully revealed to foreign wonder and admiration.
—F. V. Dickens (1838–1915) and S. Lane-Poole (1854–1931), The Life of Sir Harry Parkes sometime Her Majesty’s Minister to China and Japan Vol. II (1894)

The British diplomat Sir Harry Parkes (1828–1885) was likely the first Western visitor to Nikko. Parkes had been working in China as consul for the British crown, and in 1865, he was appointed minister and consul-general of Japan. During his 15-year posting, he played a key role in foreign negotiations with the Tokugawa shogunate.

There is certainly a great charm about Nikko, and there is variety for everyone’s tastes . . . no more is needed to stamp this place as one of the pleasantest resting-places in Japan. —Sir Ernest M. Satow (1843–1929), The Japan Weekly Mail, April 20, 1872

Ernest Satow arrived in Japan in 1862. He worked under Sir Harry Parkes, as a student interpreter for the British consular service. Satow’s own visit to Nikko was captured in a serialized travelogue for The Japan Weekly Mail, and he later published his experience as A Guide Book to Nikko (1875). Satow is best known for his later book, A Diplomat in Japan (1921).

. . . close to Nikko, the road is closely bordered with magnificent cryptomeria, a species of pine. . . To see this careful attention miles from a habitation indicates the most perfect care.
—Edward S. Morse (1838–1925), Japan Day by Day (1917)

Edward Morse was a celebrated scientist who came to Japan in 1877, lured not by its culture or trade but by its native shellfish. He taught zoology in Tokyo for several years and kept careful records of what he experienced in Japan. At the urging of a colleague, he published his observations of nineteenth-century Japan in his 1917 book Japan Day by Day.

. . . when the broad road passed into the colossal avenue of cryptomeria which overshadows the way to the sacred shrines of Nikko, and tremulous sunbeams and shadows flecked the grass, I felt that Japan was beautiful . . .
—Isabella Bird (1831–1904), Unbeaten Tracks in Japan (1880)

Englishwoman Isabella Bird wrote prodigiously about her many global adventures, which took her throughout East and West Asia and to the United States. She visited Japan in 1878 and traveled the country extensively, including to Hokkaido, and—at the recommendation of Ernest Satow—to Nikko. She published an account of her Japan travels in 1880.

When, on leaving the station, I entered the solemn stillness of the cryptomeria avenue, the contrast to the bustling modern life I had just left was overwhelming.
—Erwin Bälz (1849–1913), Awakening Japan: The Diary of a German Doctor (1974)

Dr. Erwin Bälz came to Japan in 1876 to teach at the school that would become the University of Tokyo’s Faculty of Medicine. He traveled to Nikko a handful of times and was so fond of the sugi-lined avenue that he had a seat carved into a boulder near his hotel so he could have a place to sit and enjoy the trees. Dr. Bälz contributed greatly to fostering connections between the Japanese and Western medical communities. He helped popularize judo outside Japan.