insights from frontier Japan

Notsuke Peninsula was cloudless and clear; the wind was light; even my heart was bright. The surface of the accumulated snow melted in the sunlight, before being frozen by the cold of the mornings and evenings, and becoming hard again. Even without snowshoes, our feet did not sink. With only a light jacket and warm shoes, we decided to hike to Todowara.

Japanese larch windbreak trees and their shadows stretching across the pure white snow in perfectly straight rows paint a beautiful picture that looks like a tapestry pattern. The scenery was discovered in the air above the town of Shari in the Okhotsk region during an aerial shooting session photographing drift ice.

I boarded a sightseeing boat departing from Rausu to photograph the Steller's sea eagles and white-tailed sea eagles wintering over the drift ice, and used a telephoto lens to shoot the birds resting on the ice floes.

In southern Japan, delicate vernal blossoms of plum, peach and cherry now bedeck the branches, proving that a new season has arrived and showing that everything is alive — It’s spring! Meanwhile, in northern Japan, it is snow that coats the limbs of trees, snow that blizzards and lies deeply piled and drifted between forest trees, snow that brightens mountain flanks and threatens to crush the ageing roof beams of abandoned houses, and it is drift ice that covers the sea, proving that the old season’s frosty, vicelike grip remains hard — It’s still winter!! By Mark Brazil

Cape Chashikotsu is located in the Utoro area of Shari Town in the Okhotsk Subprefecture. There, the drift ice blanketing the Sea of Okhotsk and icicles along the cape create a world of ice. Sunlight is growing in strength, and there is an increasing freedom from the harshest winter climate of whole days in below freezing temperatures. However, at the Shiretoko Peninsula, both the land and the ocean are completely painted white with ice and snow. Low pressures bring clouds, and clouds bring snow. Spring has not come quite just yet.

As Okhotsk drift ice tourism reaches its peak season, numerous photographers and tourists are visiting "Cape Puyuni" in the Okhotsk region town of Shari to capture images of the setting sun sinking into the Shiretoko drift ice.

On an intensely cold early morning measuring 20 degrees below zero on the thermometer, water vapor rose from holes in the ice surface on Eastern Hokkaido Lake Kussharo, covering the lakeside area in a frost mist.

On a bitterly cold morning when the temperature drops below minus 20 degrees Celsius, a river fog appears along the banks of the river in the village of Sarabetsu in the Tokachi subprefecture.

On January 8, a nighttime tour was held to enjoy the floodlit Yamabiko Falls in Maruseppu in the town of Engaru in the Okhotsk region, where a huge icicle forms during the severe winter season. Approximately 50 people from the town and beyond enjoyed the magical view.