insights from frontier Japan

‘Kitami Athlete Stays’ a training-camp facility exclusive to sports teams and athletes opened in Kitami High Tech Park in the city of Kitami in eastern Hokkaido on July 30, with a preview event for related parties.

At Eastern Hokkaido's Lake Saroma, the harvest season for the short-spined sea urchin is in full swing. Harvesting is being conducted robustly, using a method of collecting sea urchins from the lake floor by pulling nets fitted with iron claws. Lake Saroma sea urchin harvesting is being conducted by the three fishery cooperatives of Yubetsu, Tokoro, and Saroma. This year, it started on April 12.

Koinobori carp streamers were raised on April 16 at the schoolyard in Kaminikoro Elementary School in Eastern Hokkaido's city of Kitami. The 22 koinobori streamers colored red, blue, and green swam leisurely amidst the rural region wind.

The herring fishing season is reaching its peak in the Okhotsk region. Known in Japan as the “spring fish,” herrings herald the arrival of spring in the sea from which the drift ice has disappeared.

One hundred and fifteen fishing boats hauled ashore to avoid the drift ice off the Okhotsk Sea coast in Tokoro-cho in Kitami in eastern Hokkaido are waiting to leave the port to go fishing. Work to return the fishing boats to the sea began on March 3. March 20 is the date when, in normal years, the “opening of the sea” – when the amount of drift ice reduces enough for the boats to set sail – usually occurs.

Kyudo (Japanese archery) teams from 12 high schools in Hokkaido linked their kyudo training halls together via the online conference system "Zoom" and held an archery competition on February 27.

The coffee shop chain Starbucks Coffee Japan (Tokyo) opened a shop in Kitami City on November 2 of last year. This is their first shop in the Okhotsk region of eastern Hokkaido. The final motivational push for opening was survey research conducted in class by five Kitami Hokuto High School students two years ago in an attempt to attract Starbucks to their city.

Rope for an "ice boom" designed to prevent drift ice from entering the lake interior was installed at the No. 1 Lake Entrance to Lake Saroma (Kitami City), a body of water neighboring north-eastern Hokkaido's Sea of Okhotsk.

Normally, the sale of lucky charms – popular among worshippers at Kitami Shrine (Kitami City) during the year-end and New Year period – begins on New Year’s Day, but this year, due to measures to stop the spread of the Covid-19 virus, sales began on December 20.