insights from frontier Japan

As autumn approaches, Japan's largest natural glasswort area in Ubaranai, Abashiri City is beginning to change colors. The annual September "Lake Notoro Coral Grass Festival" has been cancelled for the second year running in response to the State of Emergency Declaration for Hokkaido as a COVID-19 countermeasure, but tourists are still enjoying the colorful vermillion scenery with the lake as a backdrop.

The phenomenon called "solar halo", in which a large circle of light forms around the sun, appeared in the sky above the Tokachidake mountain range on the morning of August 27. This photo was captured at an area near the mountain summit station of the Hokusei Mountain Lift at Nishi 1 Sen Kita in the Northern Hokkaido town of Nakafurano.

The beautiful sea, known as “Shakotan blue” sparkles in the strong, summer sunlight. A drone flown above the sea reveals a green heart approximately 300 meters off the coast of the Ogon Peninsula in Bikuni in the town of Shakotan in the central Hokkaido region of Shiribeshi.

‘Rice-paddy art’ in which different colored rice is planted in paddy fields to created pictures, is reaching its peak viewing period in the Higashi Takasu district of the city of Asahikawa in central Hokkaido.

The full bloom season has arrived for flowers all along the Taisetsu Mountain Range. The path from the Ginsendai trailhead in the Northern Hokkaido Kamikawa region town of Kamikawa to Mt. Hakuundake (2,230 meters high) is an alpine plant trail ascending through the heavens, and is lavishly populated by the indigenous and rare plants that grow wild in the area. Amidst the beautiful weather of July 17, many mountain hikers visited the trail.

Red-crowned cranes are a nationally protected species, and two of them were confirmed visiting a rice paddy in the Northern Hokkaido town of Haboro on July 9. According to the Hokkaido Seabird Center (Haboro), this is the third time red-crowned cranes have been spotted in Haboro, and the first time in two years, since June 2019.

Pale violet petals sway in the summer breeze as flax plants reach full bloom in farm fields in the village of Sarabetsu in the Tokachi region.

Potato plants are in full bloom at the foot of Mt. Yotei in the town of Kutchan in the Shiribeshi prefecture, which is known as one of Hokkaido’s leading potato producing regions. The sight of fields full of flowers swaying in the breeze is a sign that summer has arrived.

Visitors to the rugged cliffs of the Otamoi coast in the city of Otaru are often overwhelmed by the beauty of the clear sea below, before summer begins in earnest.

Orange Siberian lilies (Lilium pensylvanicum) and other colorful wild flowers have begun to bloom at the Koshimizu Genseikaen Wild Flower Park, a popular tourist spot in the Okhotsk region of eastern Hokkaido. According to the Information Center Hana, the peak of the viewing season for Siberian lilies is from the end of June to early July.