Ishikari

Ishikari's trade grew from exchanges between the leading Ainu chief of the river basin and Matsumae retainers granted commercial rights there. Japanese residents were initially few. The retainers sent boats to obtain dried salmon, hawk and eagle feathers, animal skins and other food products through barter. Salmon made the river particularly valuable, and eighteenth-century records describe vessels arriving in summer and returning to Matsumae soon afterwards.

In 1807, concern over Russian expansion brought Ezo under direct shogunal administration. Around this period, poor salmon catches and smallpox reduced the resources and population on which the Ishikari fishery depended. Labour shortages led to more coercive work demands on Ainu people and migrants from elsewhere. The trading place thus developed from exchanges with an Ainu river society into an increasingly demanding commercial fishery.