Ashikura Hachiman Shrine and Cedar Tree

At the northern edge of Shirakawa-go, Ashikura Hachiman Shrine is built around two large paired boulders called husband and wife rocks. The narrow gap between them was considered a boundary between this world and the divine. According to local legend, a physician who fled a medieval castle before an earthquake destroyed it in thanks planted several cedar trees beside the shrine. One of those trees still stands: 35 meters tall, with a trunk roughly 12 meters around. The Ashikura area became a regional center for cedar cultivation, and the first saplings planted throughout Gifu Prefecture are said to have come from seeds of this very tree.