insights from frontier Japan

The work of digging out and shipping cabbages that were harvested in the autumn and stored under the snow to bring out their sweetness is now in full swing in the town of Niseko.

During the potato harvest season in September, Taiki Harada, 41, had trouble hiring workers to help him on his 100 hectares of farmland in and around the town of Kutchan in Hokkaido. “There is no one to drive the harvesting machinery,” he lamented. “It was much easier last year.”

This summer, in a residential house surrounded by fields of potatoes and beets in a village called Makkari in Hokkaido’s Shiribeshi region, Henry Blake Turner, a 40-year-old from the U.K., started a real estate company — the only one in the village. The agency deals with properties in the village and the towns of Kyogoku and Rankoshi, as well as other towns in the vicinity of Niseko.

Empty lines at Kiroro and Hirafu for ski lifts that are normally bustling with international tourists. Socially distanced crowds in multipurpose rooms and town centers throughout Shiribeshi, everyone waiting at government sponsored vaccination drives. Crossed-out dates on calendars for travel plans booked before the string of emergencies in Hokkaido. Mental images like these may come to mind when thinking back on life in Shiribeshi throughout 2021.

Developers began construction of a new hotel in the Kutchan town’s Hirafu district, a central part of Hokkaido’s Niseko resort, back in Aug. 17, when the prefecture was being hit by the fifth wave of the pandemic with daily cases topping 400. Owned by Wu Wei Yin Shi, a Macao-based catering services company making its debut in the Japanese market, the hotel will have four stories above ground and one below with a total of eight guest rooms, with plans to open by the 2022 ski season.

‘Niseko Momiji,’ a product of Niseko Cheese Factory, a cheese manufacturer and retailer in the town of Niseko, won the Super Gold Award on November 3 at the World Cheese Awards, an international cheese contest held in Oviedo, Spain. The cheese, which is matured for two years, has a characteristically profound, savory flavor. It is the first time a Hokkaido cheese factory has won the award.

On November 15, Ishiya Co., Ltd. (Sapporo) and major tea sales company Lupicia (Niseko, Shiribeshi region) released a limited quantity of ‘Shiroi Koibito Beer,’ made using part of the ingredients of Shiroi Koibito, a popular product of Ishiya. The beer is said to have a characteristically sweet, milky taste with a harmonious aroma of hops.

Major confectioner Ishiya Co., Ltd. (Sapporo) and major tea sales company Lupicia Co., Ltd., (Niseko, Shiribeshi region) have joined forces to develop ‘Shiroi Koibito Beer’, which uses the confectioner’s popular ‘Shiroi Koibito’ product as part of its ingredients. The sweetness of white chocolate and the fruity aroma of hops harmonize to create a characteristically refreshing taste.

Niseko Gravel, a ‘gravel bike’ event using road-racing bikes with fatter tires that can be used on unpaved trails was held in the three central Hokkaido towns of Kutchan, Niseko and Rankoshi for the first time on August 1.