Journeys: Okhotsk

I've decided to write something about my journeys. Surely this is easier than writing a song, or multiple songs...

I would say I have a strange perspective about travelling, and I write in that perspective.

Preface

Before I decided to embark on this very journey around the Okhotsk region of Hokkaido I thought I was already well travelled there. Surely I've been to Koshimizu twice, Kitami and Abashiri thrice, plus visits to the less well-known municipalities I can't remember clearly. And then I thought again, if I can't remember them clearly then I'm surely not well travelled there.

Also when I made those visits I didn't start collecting the municipality sign magnets. It's always extra frustrating when I don't have the magnet of somewhere I actually been to, so I set out to fix this problem.

Route planning

The Okhotsk region is simultaneously larger and smaller than the name suggests.

Not everything along the coast of Sea of Okhotsk belongs there. Well most of the coast actually belongs in the Okhotsk region so I'm fine with that. (For your information, the two 'corners' and their cultural / economic extensions belong to the Wakkanai region and Kushiro regions respectively.)

Then, the Okhotsk region is in a way compensated for with quite some extension into the inlands. The regional centre which is Kitami is completely landlocked. No marine fun. Also inland is the Memanbetsu airport, the Mashu / Kusharo lakes.

All that said, I want to point out that I never planned on covering every inch of the region. I'm fine with just going to Kitami and its instant vicinities. An extra factor is the Okhotsk Yukari cutouts that was initiated 10 years ago (in 2014). Some of those still remain.

So eying mainly on Kitami, starting from Sapporo, and via roads, there isn't an abundance of routing options. First you go to Asahikawa, then you go to Kitami. And make detours if time allows, that's basically it.

The Sapporo to Asahikawa part is the one with choices. Realistically I can choose from R275 and R12 or hop between them. I could also detour around Akabira-Utshinai-Ashibetsu or Furano but I completely decided against that. Had enough fun last two times around there.

I also took the R275 which is the west bank of River Ishikari a bit too much maybe. When I checked my refrigerator door I was amazed that I didn't have the magnet of Mikasa, which is proudly the 1st Roadside Station (registered) in Hokkaido. Yeah, I really shunned the R12 for too long. So I'm going that way.

Horokanai

The town of Horokanai is probably most known for its Soba (buckwheat) plantation and noodle production, and being ridiculously cold and snow prone. Well it's not the northernmost buckwheat production because Otoineppu is more north. Concerning the freezing cold I've also seen Rikubetsu claim itself to be the coldest town in Japan (and both Rikubetsu and Horokanai are Towns). And snow, 3.2 or something metres of snow is definitely something but at the same time not too surprising for western Hokkaido, which is basically plagued by ridiculous amounts of snow generally.

Still, this town is not doing too bad. Maybe because it wasn't a coal mine town.

Roads from Asahikawa, via Takasu and the incorporated former Town of Etanbetsu, are either covered in snow, snow sorbet, or ice. Which discouraged some drivers to drive up to the speed limit. Luckily there are more than one road that lead into Horokanai.

The Roadside Station of Horokanai is situated some 15 or 20 kilometres away from the central settlement, up in the mountains. Closer to its northern neighbours than south. The actual Station is part of the town hot spring, which is just 500 yen and has shampoo and body soap, and doesn't charge extra for the sauna.

I went there even before everything opened at 1000. At 1000 several locals arrived. Half of them seemingly elder and the other half not so young.

By the way, the hot spring complex is named 'Luonto', and that probably concludes its connections to Finland. Horokanai probably has more mountains than the whole of Finland - except Samiland - does. And the sauna is not the most Finnish even among all those I've been in in Hokkaido. Still, the bath is good and at 500 yen it's already a steal.

E39, the Asahikawa-Monbetsu Expressway that doesn't go to Monbetsu yet

The E39 should be seen as the eastern extension of the E5 Douou (central Hokkaido) Expressway. The plan is to reach all the way to Monbetsu, but when I visited 3 and a half years ago, and this time, it terminates at Enbetsu. But it's free, and with some luck you can go as fast on normal 'blue' roads as on 'green' expressways in Hokkaido, so whatever.

Starting from somewhere around Kamikawa, more famously known as the Souunkyou Hot Spring, the E39 is covered in snow and ice just like most other roads north of Asahikawa. Being an honoured expressway, speed limits of 50 km/h are all over the place because of frozen surfaces. And you know you're in Hokkaido when you gets overtaken by cars (plural) probably 20 km/h faster when you're already going 90.

It probably was more gradual than I now remember, but in my memory it felt like after a certain tunnel all the snow was gone. Well it made sense in its own right because tunnels go through mountain bodies and mountain bodies block snow.

Rational as it sounds, it was still very shocking to see snow on the tarmac, on the trees around, on the centre division, well basically everywhere, gone when I cleared a mere tunnel. Or maybe it wasn't so shocking. I was (and will always be) much more occupied with my dire frustration about tunnels.

Kussharo Lake (and Mashu Lake to a lesser extent)

I am very certain that the Lake of Kussharo would be the biggest disappointment for this trip. Kussharo, Mashu and Akan are basically three volcanic lakes (I don't know if that's a valid class of lakes, but that's basically why they're hot spring resorts). And geographically akin to Toya, probably. I'm not really an expert on geography.

Now the problem for me with all those premium, lakeside, Japanese hot spring resorts is how they are too posh and too generic. And too pejoratively nostalgic, which is extra personal.

The Showa generation is far from extinct and modern Showa appreciation is still a thing. So that's their justification for staying as a shadow of the hot spring resorts some 30 or maybe 50 years ago. Not my cuppa tea for sure.

I do have some doubts about whether Kussharo - or to say, the people around this lake who live off tourism - can hold out much longer. Driving past roughly 2/3 of the lake I've seen some 3 or 4 discarded hotels. Car parks are comically empty but that's understandable as holiday season is yet to come. My totally groundless speculation is some of the business was sold to incompetent investors or outright frauds. Just like Hotel Mount Racey in Yuubari. Maybe I'm just duplicating that grudge which amplified the disappointment.

The one interesting thing in life is at the intersection of Prefectural Route 52 and Route 243. A building that apparently was a petrol station repurposed to be an ice cream and sweets shop. The ice cream was not bad but always will be the most generic vanilla flavour one could ever get from the most generic suppliers. An extravagant chair inside the shop looked like something that belongs more in a nightclub - the splash the cash 'host' type - than an ice cream shop, and the owner too, per my biased judgements. Outside the petrol station canopy stood, but with the branding washed over or simply faded.

I can't help but imagine it's a story where someone had to start over again, for debt or worse, and they chose to run an ice cream shop in a disused petrol station in the wilderness. It's dramatically boring and boringly dramatic at the same time and I dig this.