insights from frontier Japan

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.

In east Hokkaido's Okhotsk region, harvesting has picked up speed for beets for making sugar. The round, plump, white beets are being dug up in large numbers.

The harvesting, sorting, and shipping of Kitami-grown onions are booming. Kitami grows the largest amount of onions in Japan.

Aerial footage has been recorded of Hokkaido Brown Bear feeding damage at a 2.2-hectare dent corn field in Kitami City that has been occurring since early August.