Gokayama Washi no Sato

Gokayama Washi no Sato is a papermaking museum and hands-on workshop facility in the Kaminashi hamlet of the Gokayama valley, Nanto, dedicated to Gokayama washi, a handmade paper tradition documented since at least the Edo period and prized historically for its exceptional strength and durability, qualities that led the Kaga domain to favor it for official documents and that still make it sought after for shoji screens, umbrellas, and lampshades. The exhibition hall traces the papermaking process from harvesting and steaming kozo (paper mulberry) bark through the traditional nagashizuki sheet-forming technique, in which a wooden frame and bamboo screen are rocked by hand in a vat of fibrous pulp to build up thin, even layers, a technique largely unchanged since the craft's establishment in this isolated mountain valley, where papermaking developed alongside the area's silk cultivation and gunpowder production as one of the few winter income sources for snowbound farming households. Displays include historical papermaking tools, samples of finished washi in different grades and uses, and information on the cooperative structure that has sustained the craft among a small number of Gokayama households into the present. Alongside the exhibition, the facility runs a paper-making experience room where visitors form their own sheet of washi to take home, giving the museum both a curatorial and a participatory dimension rather than static display alone.