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Concord, Massachusetts and Nanae, Hokkaido
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Soon after Commodore Matthew Perry and representatives of the Emperor of Japan signed the 1854 Treaty of Kanagawa, the doors to Japan were open to the west. Closed for more than two centuries, the port of Simoda and soon the port of Hakodate in Hokkaido were open to American ships for trade and to take on coal and other supplies.
In the 1850’s, the new Emperor Meiji instituted a bold plan to modernize Japan. Many New Englanders were enlisted to help develop the northernmost island of Hokkaido. In 1876, Dr. William S. Clark, then President of Massachusetts Agricultural College, went to Hokkaido with three graduate students, including William Wheeler from Concord. They assisted in founding Sapporo Agricultural College, now Hokkaido University. The mission of Clark and his students was to introduce agriculture suitable for a northern climate and dairy farming. Dr. Clark returned to
In 1931,
Nanae is a town of 23,773 located a short distance from the major city of Hakodate in southwestern Hokkaido. The main industry is agriculture. Nanae is a portion of the Hakodate Technopolis Project. The mission of the project is to develop a "brain intensive" industrial park. The town owns the Onuma Quasi National Park. The park includes the majestic live volcano Mt. Komagatake and two caldera lakes.
The Concord Public Schools and the Concord-Carlisle High School have had relationships with Nanae and its schools since 1994. The Thoreau, Willard, and Alcott Schools have affiliations with the Onuma, Togeshita, and Fujishiro Elementary Schools. The Concord Middle School hosted five students and a teacher each year from 1995-2002. The Concord-Carlisle High School has hosted students each fall since 1997 and the CCHS Concert Band went to Nanae in 1998, 2004, and 2007.