A pre-trip note for Kanazawa, Toyama, and Komatsu covering the Meiji era: the abolition of the domains and the creation of Toyama Prefecture in 1883, the Bandori uprising and the assassination of Honda Masachika, the Kioichō Incident and the freedom and people's rights movement, foreigners who came to Hokuriku, the Fourth Higher School and figures such as Nishida Kitarō, Kanazawa's power looms and the Ogoya mine in Komatsu, the 9th Division and the Russo-Japanese War, the railway and rebuilding after the Toyama and Takaoka fires, and the 1907 survey of Mount Tsurugi.