HAKODATE HACHIMAN-GU

This beautiful Shinto shrine is located in the quiet district of Yachigashira. During the festival, which takes place every two years around August 15, horses climb the 134 steps leading to the shrine. According to legend, in the second year of the reign of Emperor Go-Hanazono (1445), the governor of Kameda-gun built a mansion in Hakodate, and he enshrined the deity Hachiman in the southeast corner of the building, which was considered a national shrine of the second rank. The present shrine building was completed in 1915.