Duluth’s Japanese Peace Bell Garden celebrates the sister city relationship with Ohara Isumi-City, Japan. During World War II, the Japanese government instructed villages to donate metal for ammunition, and Ohara Isumi-City dismantled its prized Buddhist temple bell, but the bell remained intact by the war’s end. A naval crew from the U.S.S. Duluth carried it to Duluth, where it became a gift to the city, before it was returned to Ohara Isumi-City in 1954. In 1993, Ohara Isumi-City presented Duluth with a replica that now resides in the park. The garden was created to commemorate twenty years of friendship between the two cities and was dedicated in August 2010. Its design draws on traditional Japanese garden elements—stones, water, plants, and manmade objects—while also using the bedrock and boulders of Enger Park to create a setting organic to northern Minnesota. Natural rock formations and arranged stones visually represent streams, ponds, and lakes, including a dry lake filled with small rocks raked to resemble waves. The garden also includes a covered entryway, a bridge, stone lanterns, a pagoda, and stone benches meant to encourage reflection. Citizens, city workers, committees, and volunteers from Duluth and Isumi contributed to creating and maintaining the garden as a place to honor tradition, reflect on the past, strengthen the future, honor one another, and celebrate peace.
