Traversing
Travel Light

by Nao Yoshigai

The area surrounding Oronko Rock in the port of Utoro, Shari, Shiretoko, Hokkaido is a paradise for wild birds.

At first, a pure white gull caught my eye. Then it was a pure black crow. Under cover of a group of crows, there was a slightly different bird which I hadn’t seen before. It looked like a black crow―its whole body was black—but it had white just around the eyes and red legs. The tip of the wing was slightly thinner than a crow’s, and so it seemed to move more deftly, looking more graceful in flight. I found out later that this bird is called keimafuri (spectacled guillemot), found to breed only in Utoro, it is very rare even to see it in other areas of Japan.

Gulls, crows, keimafuri―it seems that there are no turf lines in the sky, and in the sky around Oronko Rock, white birds, black birds, and birds with a combination of white, black, and red all intermingled, flying around and calling for as long as they had the strength.

Kaa kaa, kau kau, ke―, ko-ko-ko, ko-ko-ko, ka-ka- ka, fiiee―, keh, keh, koko-koko, kokoko

The calls were much more impressive than it sounds, and the impact of them also contributed to the sense of paradise. It’s not really common sense, birds all calling at the same time. One would expect that if they kept calling like that every day they might not have any stamina left, so what on earth was happening to them today?

A bird’s tongue resembles the shape of a human tongue, and I heard somewhere that they can pronounce almost all human speech. I have dreamed of a conversation between a bird and a human since I realized that if a human tried hard to move their tongue like a bird, they would be able to speak bird language. I thought today was a good opportunity, so I took a recorder out of my rucksack and briefly collected the words of the birds living around Oronko Rock.

April 11

Utoro port was cloudless, no wind, and the surface of the sea was calm like a lake. Apparently, I was blessed with good weather. Even though it is spring, it’s Hokkaido, so I put warm clothes on, but there was almost no coastal north wind piercing my skin and the sun’s rays, undisturbed by anything, warmed my entire body.

I did not bring any shooting equipment on this trip, only a sound recorder and an iPhone. I was traveling very light. I usually direct movies, and I am originally a dancer, so I do choreography as well. When shooting in harsh nature, crews have to carry a backpack, tripod, camera, battery, food and art objects to a location, but if you just want to enjoy being in nature, you don’t really need all of this. A crew becomes one to try and capture the image. When shooting, my state of mind is like a hunter. A sense of tension accompanies me.

I rarely have the opportunity to come to Shiretoko, so I thought I should bring lightweight shooting equipment to capture once-in-a-lifetime footage of the scenery, but this time I thought it would be ok to do without because I had decided to look at Shiretoko with my whole body. I told myself that because I was starting to regret not bringing my camera.

Getting closer to the sun, I started to climb Oronko Rock to observe the birds’ ecology from the top. Oronko Rock has stairs to climb to the top, and moving slowly along the handrail, you will reach it in 15 minutes. The elevation is about 40 meters.

The rock is an unusual rectangular shape, so the side is almost a vertical cliff from the bottom to the top, and steep stairs have been built along this cliff.

On the way up, a sharp smell crossed my nose. Perhaps the smell of bird droppings. I couldn’t see any droppings on the stairs or the trail, but on the other side of the cliff, the ocean side, I could gauge from the smell of the air that the birds were firmly telling me, We are living here!

After I climbed to the top of Oronko Rock, the magnificent Sea of Okhotsk expanded before my eyes. On the right-hand side, Shiretoko mountain range soared beautifully. Behind me was Utoro port, where I had just come from. Yes, the top of Oronko Rock is the best spot to see the Utoro landscape from 360 degrees, and, as a matter of fact, it is one of the “Eight Views” of Shiretoko.

When I reached the summit of Oronko Rock, I thought, from the bottom of my heart, “I’m glad that I didn’t bring anything.” My shoulders were light, and my body was pleased. If no one were there, I would have wanted to be naked and mingle with the air.

The scenery that I am looking at now is only for me. What a luxury! What a trip! I took deep breaths, finding and losing the border between the earth and the sky, which were becoming one in the distance. I took another deep breath and started to observe the birds again.

There were lots of birds flying a little below the summit of the rock, and I watched them with the sky as a backdrop before looking down and watching them with the sea behind. It really is a nice feeling to see birds fly. It is a picture of paradise. It is similar to watching a seal in an aquarium with a plump, chubby belly swimming around on its back. Speaking of which, the shape of the birds also reminded me of a seal’s roundness. That round, angle-less body is the key to being able to fly about and keep harsh nature on your side. For a moment, I put my awareness into the body of a bird, and I swam in the sky.

On the way back, I found some broken, wet, fish bones scattered around. Apparently, a bird had just regurgitated them. The meat had been cleanly picked off, and only the bones were glistening with the bird’s stomach juices. I suddenly realized that the fragrant smell of birds droppings there seemed to be cultivated by the ocean―the ocean is condensed into the scent. What can I say? The smell was a little salty. I brought my iPhone close and took a picture of the bones, and with gratitude, I deeply breathed in the smell from around Oronko Rock―the scent of birds droppings containing the ocean.

There are two shops within walking distance of Oronko Rock. Both are unique, full of one-off items that you would never see unless you came to the town of Utoro.

The first shop, Karupe, sells deer horns and bear fangs. On top of that, there are also minke whale beards, whale teeth, squirrel furs, bear skulls and so on. Reading all of this, it might sound terrible, but contained in each item are wishes and prayers such as “charm against evil spirits” and “for good health.” Amongst the endless items, I bought a whistle made from a clam, two keychains that were 50 yen each, and a clip in the shape of a northern fox.

Small, leftover souvenirs that were made some time ago, are now sold at bargain prices, but if you look at them one by one some are really lovely and so I often tend to buy those things.

A picture of a bear—hanging decoratively in the store—caught my eye. Shiretoko is famous for brown bears, but at first glance, it was apparent that the bear pictured was not wild―it was in a blue tub, playing in the water. The distance between the camera and the subject was also quite close. When I talked to the owner of the store, it seemed that he had kept this bear for a long time. I heard two houses in Utoro had kept bears. The owner of the store had many animals before, but he said this bear had been the cutest. The other shop is called House of the Chief, owned by a man of Ainu descent, it stocks goods associated with the Ainu people. When I entered the shop, he served me a cup of warm tea. There were various books on folktales and nature in Shiretoko, carved wooden spoons, clothes embroidered with Ainu patterns and more. The most superb thing was a crown, which had been made by shaving off the bark of a tree, strip by strip until only the core remained (this was not for sale). I was interested in listening to the CD of a four-woman group called Marewrew, which I saw in the Ainu Music Corner. It was great, so I I ended up buying it.

From there, I drove to the town of Shari accompanied by the music of Marewrew.

April 12

Today I decided to go to the Shiretoko National Park Nature Center, which is about a 15-minute drive from Oronko Rock.

Shiretoko National Park Nature Center sits on a mountain, and there was still snow remaining in the forest. March of this year wasn’t warm enough, and there was said to be more snow around than usual. I think the scenery must look slightly different in April each year. I am from Hikaru City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, and it doesn’t snow much there, and even in Tokyo, it only snows a few centimeters at most. Apart from a ski resort on a school trip, I have had no experience in the snow, and so I didn’t know how to walk on the snow-covered roads. I was able to rent snow boots for 500 yen, so I decided to put them on and take a walk along the Furepe Falls trail. Furepe Falls, also known as “Maiden’s Tears,” is a place where the snowmelt springs out from underneath the rocks and flows down into the ocean.

When I was heading to the waterfall, I said “Let’s go!”, and took one step on the snow-covered road—almost crying out—as my legs became buried in snow right up to my knees, about 50 centimeters deep. I wasn’t injured or anything and having snow up to my knees isn’t a big deal, but where I thought there would be a solid foundation to put my weight on, it was hollow except for snow, and so it became a hard journey for a snow-walking beginner.

I crunched along the snow-covered road while saying “Whew whew, wow wow.” Every one in eight steps there was a pit that buried my knees. I kept fearing that it wouldn’t stop at my knees—that my whole body would get trapped in the snow—but it didn’t happen.

While fighting against all this fear, I tried to get my body accustomed, step by step. When I harden myself with fear, I feel tired, so I tried to let go, breathe, put pressure on the point below my navel, draw my legs up from my stomach and swing them downward​ with their weight. Even if my foot was dragged into the depths of the snow, I would accept without resisting and entrust my body to where it fell. It is the same in a dance lesson. I have been learning to dance since I was 12 years old, but my physical ability is not that high. I was the type of person who couldn’t do anything right away and wondered why. Since I couldn’t be better than anyone else, I tended to carefully observe the relationship between my body and my heart wondering why I wasn’t able to do things. I came to the conclusion I am a coward. Since my imagination is stronger than other people’s, when I try an acrobatic move, I am scared of either dying or failing and hurting some part of my body. If humans can conquer this power of imagination—and their heart, technique, and physique become one—they can dance like beasts. (However, maybe it will shorten their lifespan.)

When I stopped and looked around, a fox was looking my way. Our eyes met. I took a little step towards it because it was cute, but it became frightened and stepped back. However, instead of running away, it turned its head and looked back, staring at me with its cute eyes. Its face seemed to be saying, I know about humans. It’s not my first time to see one. But I wonder what it was actually thinking.

I heard that recently there are foxes known colloquially as “begging foxes” because tourists give them food and they emotionally attach to humans. There are some that even let humans hug them in return for food. It is a bad thing to do because it destroys the natural ecosystem; however, luring with food may be the only way for humans and animals to communicate. It is puzzling that through the giving and receiving of food, this mutual trust can occur, but I can tell that the owner of Karupe loved his bear very much. I continued walking for 30 minutes. All of a sudden, my field of vision opened up, and a big space―like a public square—appeared in front of me. There were very few trees, and the middle sloped up into a hill. There was not much snow remaining, but many splendid Hokkaido deer were gathered on the hill, eating the grass that was not covered in snow. I assume there were about 30 of them. Their hair was denser than the deer we usually see, but they were still adorable.

Adorable, but I remembered that I had eaten Hokkaido deer lasagna for dinner the night before. In Shiretoko, the number of deer have multiplied, and therefore they have been targeted for extermination—you can see many similar cases throughout Japan. We drove past the Hokkaido Sika Deer Farm, where the captured deer are gathered and slaughtered for their meat.

Deer, foxes, brown bears, seagulls, crows, keimafuri—the people living in Shiretoko exist alongside a variety of animals. They eat deers and kill bears if they venture into the town and it proves necessary. The place showing all such things is the Shiretoko National Park Nature Center (I borrowed my snow boots from here).

On display, there is a beautifully skinned hide of a bear which came into town and was shot. There was a handwritten sign attached which said, “This is a display item. Don’t miss it! Please touch!” Usually, these signs say “Please do not touch,” but at Shiretoko National Park Nature Center, you can look, touch and know every item. I felt that the staff were passionate about getting people interested in the ecology of animals.

I walked for about an hour―it took a very long time to get used to walking on the snow-covered road—and finally made it to Furepe Falls. The water springing out of the rock and cascading down was definitely the tears of a maiden. The melted snow from the Shiretoko mountain range—which towered at the back of my view—comes to the cliff and falls down, caressing the rock face gently. There was an ocean in front of me that continues to catch all those tears devotedly. I felt a little choked up that the tears all pooled into one to become this vast ocean. By rephrasing “waterfall” into “tears,” I felt that nature is also an extension of my body, and therefore the magical power of words is very interesting and sometimes terrifying.

April 13

The Nature Center was vast and had many walking courses, so the next day I decided to go around the Pioneer’s Hut course.

I told the staff from the Center that I was exhausted from walking in long boots yesterday and they said, “We have snowshoes,” and lent them to me for walking on the snow. These turned out to be a great product. It doesn’t matter how you walk on the snow; they won’t let you slip down into a hole up to your knee. I regretted not borrowing these yesterday, but everything is a lesson. I had been walking for the past two days straight, and although I had muscle pain and pleasant fatigue, bubbling out of me was the desire to keep looking around.

Coming to Shiretoko, there were so many things I had never seen before. The Sea of ​​Okhotsk, keimafuri, ruins of drifting ice, herds of deer, pictures of pet bears, Ainu dogs biting people, a cooking stove in a pick-up truck—too many things to write them all down. I want to know this land a little bit more.

The course that I’m going to walk today is called “Pioneer’s Hut Course.” I’m off to see the old hut that was built to pioneer the magnificent nature of Shiretoko. However, pioneering failed, and it seems like no one lives there now. I wonder what kind of places people tried to live in but couldn’t. I am very intrigued.

Wearing snowshoes possessed me with an ability that humans do not originally have, and with this ability, my tiredness disappeared. Encouraged by the delicious air of Shiretoko forest and the snow glittering in the sunlight, I aimed for the hut and began to walk again, crunch, crunch.