This ferry, located on the shore of the Amnok River in the northern tip of Korea, is frequently visited by the Korean people.
During the Japanese military occupation of Korea it was crowded with the Korean people, who had to leave their native land in tears of blood and pent-up sorrow for the loss of their country under the harsh repression of the Japanese imperialists.
In March 1923 Kim Il Sung crossed the ferry and made a 250-mile journey for learning from Badaogou of Changbai County, China to Mangyongdae, his birthplace.
With a grim resolve not to return home before Korea became independent he, at the age of 13, set out on another 250-mile journey for national liberation. On arriving at the riverside he picked up a pebble, a token of his motherland, and pledged to himself with it firmly in his hand before crossing the Amnok by the neck of the rapids, a little way down from the ferry.
President Kim Il Sung wrote in his reminiscences With the Century:
My dear Korea, I am leaving you. I know I cannot live even for a moment away from you, but I am crossing the Amnok to win you back. Across this river is a foreign land, but I will not forget you, even in there. Wait for me, my Korea. Then I sang the Song of the Amnok River again.
True to the pledge he had made while crossing the Amnok in his teens, he commanded long bloody battles against the Japanese imperialists to liberate the country and built a socialist paradise in which the masses of the people are masters of everything.
The ferry is also associated with the activities of his revolutionary family at Mangyongdae.
