Aug. 2005, Xene #47
Shiretoko: Hokkaido's Wilderness
Gains World Heritage Listing
By Michael O'Connell
 
In July, the Shiretoko Peninsula in eastern Hokkaido
was listed on the United Nations' registry of
World Natural Heritages, places of great scenic
beauty and environmental importance. The listing,
only the third such for Japan, raises the profile
of Hokkaido as an eco-tourism destination.
The peninsula has earned this status for its wildlife
and awesome topography: Ezo brown bears prowl
the forests, Steller's sea eagles ply the air,
and the Shiretoko violet (Viola kitamiana) grows
here and nowhere else; hot water gushes from volcanic
mountains, waterfalls plunge from cliffs into
the ocean, and sea ice arrives at the southernmost
limit of ice floes in the Northern Hemisphere.
Each year, more than two million travelers also
arrive, drawn by these natural attractions.
Although Shiretoko remains largely undeveloped,
it has been inhabited by humans for 10,000 years,
as documented in Shiretoko Museum in Shari Town
and Rausu Museum in Rausu Town. Successive waves
of immigration eventually produced the Ainu, a
people of obscure origins who traded with ethnic
Japanese on Honshu from the 13th century onward.
It was the Ainu who gave Shiretoko its name, originally
sir-etok, or "the ends of the Earth."
Ethnic Japanese came to Hokkaido in the 13th or
14th century, but it wasn't until the end of the
18th century that they began to exploit its rich
fishing grounds in earnest. By the mid-19th century,
Shari had been established as a fishing town at
the base of the peninsula. In the late 19th century,
settlements were established on the peninsula
itself, at what are now the ports of Rausu (1901)
and Utoro (1912). Attempts to establish fishing
villages and agricultural settlements beyond Rausu
and Utoro were foiled by the steep terrain and
lack of natural harbors. By the time technological
advances made it possible to tame Shiretoko, such
taming was no longer desirable: The need for land
had become less pressing, and awareness of nature
had increased. In 1964, Shiretoko was designated
as a national park. It had done what few wild
places in Japan had done: It had escaped development.
FIVE LAKES, ONE CRUISE
 Today,
there are four towns on the peninsula, forming
a rectangle oriented southwest to northeast. Shari
and Shibetsu are at the base of the peninsula,
on opposite sides. Utoro and Rausu are halfway
up the peninsula, also on opposite sides.
I enter the peninsula from Shari, on the northwestern
side, and stop at Oshin-koshin Falls. This is
the widest waterfall I've seen in Japan, and the
topography gives the illusion that the cascade
is spilling from the highest point on the hill,
making one wonder just where it could be coming
from. Seven kilometers onward is Utoro, the last
town on the northwestern side of the peninsula.
This tiny fishing port of a few thousand people
is set against dramatic bluffs and has a sixty-meter-high
outcropping called Oronko Rock at the waterside.
Sadly, the town planners have done nothing to
take advantage of this location.
 My
first stop is lunch at the Gyokyofujinbu-shokudo,
a no-nonsense portside eatery that serves seafood
across a single counter. The name means "fishermen's
wives' diner". The specials are salmon-fried
rice (shake cha-han; 750 yen), orange with fish,
and salmon with roe over rice (shake-oyakodon;
1,600 yen).
Utoro is the launching point for most of the peninsula
cruises (3000 yen). Of the three classes of boat,
you're best off in one of the twenty- or forty-seaters,
which run closer to the cliffs than the lumbering
hundred-seat Aurora. The ninety-minute cruise
takes me almost halfway from Utoro to the end
of the peninsula, along dark, hundred-meter-high
bluffs that resemble elephants drinking from the
ocean. In places, seepage water pours out of striated
cliffs, giving them the appearance of a breaching
baleen whale. We sail past Kokeshi Rock, a columnar
formation that is named after the cylindrical,
armless dolls of Northern Honshu. At Kamuiwakka
Falls we head back. These falls, a mixture of
runoff and hot spring water, are accessible by
road from Utoro. Bathing in them is one of the
three main activities in Shiretoko, the other
two being sea cruising and hiking the Shiretoko
Five Lakes.
The spring-fed Five Lakes, seven kilometers east
of Utoro, are not distinctive, but the three-kilometer
walk around them is pleasant, and they're one
of the few places on land that one can get a side
view of the Shiretoko Range. At the trailhead
I meet an antlered Ezo deer. Even at an arm's
length away, it grazes without alarm.
Deer are common along Rte. 334, which crosses
the peninsula from Utoro to Rausu over Rausu Pass.
On a clear day, the pass affords a view of Karafuto
Island, the Russian-held territory southeast of
Shiretoko across the Nemuro Strait. I wonder why
the pine and birch are so twisted, until I notice
the snow gates at the lower end of the road. Severe
snowfall keeps the road closed in winter and gnarls
the vegetation.
My inn in Rausu is in the shadow of Mt. Rausu,
which I plan to climb the next day. The innkeeper
tells me that a dozen climbers are injured there
each year. One poor hiker fell badly enough to
require helicopter evacuation - during which he
dropped to his death. I'm thankful I have decided
to take the easier approach, from the Utoro side.
As I turn in for the night I see a group of women
who have come up with touring bicycles by ferry
from Osaka. They're the first of dozens of cyclists,
motor bikers and other campers I will meet.
The innkeeper recommends Kuma-no-Yu (Bear Hot
Spring), a free outdoor bath. In fact, he says,
he helped build it, lugging stones down the path
into the forest. (From Rausu, the bath is immediately
before the first snow gates on Rte. 334.) Kuma-no-Yu
turns out to be an exercise in Japanese-style
passive aggression. The locals adjust the temperature
to the upper limits of human tolerance. Soft urbanites
who complain are invited to add cold water (you
big babies). I suppose it's perfect in winter,
and the forest setting is lovely.
MT. RAUSU
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The Utoro trailhead to Mt. Rausu is behind
Iwaobetsu Onsen hotel. When I sign the climber's
log at 8 a.m., I see that sixty-four groups
have beat me to it. Maybe this isn't the
cakewalk I'm expecting, I think.
Thirty minutes into my climb, I pass a tree
marked with vertical gouges, a sure sign I'm
sharing the trail with bears. Further ahead
the trail is crawling with ants, a favorite
food of bears. I don't see any bears, but I
do see woodpeckers, chipmunks, Ezo foxes, and
Ezo squirrels, recognizable by their tufted
ears and fluffy black tail.
An hour later I turn left into a cul de sac
with a spring. I hear another gurgling sound,
and fifty meters off the trail I find a mineral-encrusted
waterfall springing from the mountainside. Without
climbing gear, there's no way to reach it to
see whether it's a hot spring cascade. Back
on the main trail I meet a seven-year-old climber
whose father tells me the child climbed Mt.
Rausu at the age of four. I think: I know
the perfect hot spring for you, kid!
A descending hiker tells me he has come from
Honshu by ferry with his motorcycle. In a singsong
Nara accent he says Mt. Rausu compares favorably
to yesterday's climb, Mt. Rishiri.
"Mt. Rausu has great views and varied terrain,"
he explains.
Soon I understand what he means. The trail slices
up through a steep boulder-strewn gully of blue
alpine flowers and curious chipmunks. Although
it's August, patches of snow are left from winter.
The gully tops out at a gentle pass between
Mt. Rausu, Mt. Mitsumine and Mt. Io, which last
erupted only 70 years ago. The ground cover
is much lower here - mostly shrubs and alpine
flowers, including kokemomo (lingonberry). I
would later see it sold as jam in gift shops.
The final push to the peak takes an hour of
scrambling up volcanic boulders. From the top
I recognize the Shiretoko Five Lakes and the
Sea of Okhotsk to the west, and the Pacific
Ocean and Karafuto Island to east. But the most
dramatic view is northeast, along the spine
of the peninsula. The peaks of Mt. Mitsumine
and Mt. Io poke through the clouds, with Mt.
Shiretoko behind them.
Ten hours after I started, I arrive back at
the trailhead, thinking: Definitely not a
cakewalk.
WORLD TOURISM
 Shiretoko's
World Heritage designation offers local communities
a chance to revitalize their economies and counter
the depopulation that has come with declines
in agriculture and fishery. Roughly three quarters
of municipalities in Hokkaido are suffering
from such depopulation.
So far, the results are encouraging. According
to Akiko Kameyama of the Shiretoko Nature Center,
a semi-public organization in Shari Town, 2.3
million tourists came to Shiretoko National
Park last year, and the number of tourists has
been increasing. She says accommodations in
Utoro were fully booked in July and August of
this year.
Kunihiro Ito, Director of the Hokkaido Government's
Tourism Promotion Division told me there are
efforts to court foreign visitors. A total of
427,000 international tourists visited Hokkaido
in 2004, he said, 80% of them from Southeast
Asia. Promotional missions are planned to China,
Korea, and Taiwan later this year, and foreign
travel agents from those countries will be invited
to visit Hokkaido. The prefectural government
has distributed multilingual placards to hotels
to improve communication with guests who do
not speak Japanese.
So far, Shiretoko has a low profile among international
tourists. Foreigners account for a fraction
of a percent of tourists staying at accommodations
in Shari and Rausu, according to figures from
the prefectural government. Of the roughly 150
climbers I saw on Mt. Rausu, only four were
foreign, and two of these were Hokkaido residents.
Shiretoko remains something of a cultural adventure
for travelers without Japanese language ability.
There's very little English-language signage,
and Rausu is the only town on the peninsula
with an English website. When I asked the Rausu
tourist center about English-speaking staff,
the representative offered to take me to the
adjoining fish market. "The owner's daughter
speaks some English," she told me. The
attitude seems to be that international tourists,
however welcome, are not a priority.
It may be that Southeast Asian tourists, who
tend to come on guided tours, don't require
signs in other languages, or perhaps it's too
soon after World Heritage listing to expect
the municipalities to be ready for international
visitors.
If the communities are worried about too many
tourists - a legitimate concern, given the track
record of other World Heritage sites - they
might promote the low-season activities that
are already available, like winter sea kayaking,
backcountry skiing, snowshoeing, guided treks
on ice floes, drift ice diving, and winter parasailing.
Until then, Shiretoko will be a top destination
for domestic tourists and a well-kept secret
among international travelers.
Access
Memanbestu Airport and Nemuronakashibetsu Airport,
are 100 kilometers and 75 kilometers from Shiretoko,
respectively. Public transportation to Utoro
and Rausu is spotty, and there are no car rental
agencies in Utoro or Rausu. The best option
is to rent a car in Shari (45 minutes from Utoro)
or Shibetsu (one hour from Rausu), or to drive
from Sapporo (eight hours).
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