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Hidakasanmyaku Erimo Tokachi NP, Hokkaido
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The name “Beach of 100 People” has rival explanations: executed gold miners, the 1669 Ainu conflict, or a wreck. It appears in a 1785 source, earlier than the often-cited 1816 shipwreck tale.
Red dust from cleared hills once reached 10 km offshore and harmed kelp beds. Since 1953, crews used cast-up seaweed to anchor seeds and enrich soil; as forest returned, so did fish and Erimo’s Hidaka kombu.
The wetland pond’s older Ainu name is Shito or Shitou, locally glossed as “big lake.” A 2020 Erimo museum study says the popular tragic-love legend was crafted for sightseeing-bus storytelling in the 1960s.
Hyakunin-hama’s sand-burrowing wolf spider digs a tiny, roughly 1.5-cm burrow. It can seal the entrance with silk-bound sand grains by day or in rain, then hunt insects nearby at night.
Built in 1806, the One-Stone-One-Character Tower was said to cover Lotus Sutra text written one character per stone. Repeatedly toppled in this exposed setting, it was moved by local youths in 1923; buried stones remain unconfirmed.
Between the dunes are wetlands with sundews, orchids and gentians. Their ponds host migrating whooper swans and ducks, while reedbed birds nest nearby—several distinct habitats packed behind one long beach.
