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Hidakasanmyaku Erimo Tokachi NP, Hokkaido
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Some freshly harvested kelp reaches 13–15 m, yet fishers hook it from a boat with an L-shaped pole only about 3 m long, then haul the slippery blades aboard by hand.
A veteran “flag-holder” reads sea and sky before dawn; a flag and a roughly 4:30 a.m. siren launch Erimo’s boats. Weather may allow only about 20 sailing days in the July–September season, since each catch needs same-day sun drying.
Erimo has its own “kombu work meals”: recipes vary by fishing household, but can include rice balls, grilled fish, pickles, miso soup or steamed bread. These passed-down dishes are shared right at the drying ground.
During kelp season, children help line up the harvest before school; Erimo’s heritage plan records that schools once delayed their start or closed for fishing days. The drying grounds have long been community workplaces.
Summer kelp lies on gravel, but winter drift kelp is dried differently: snow covers those beds, so workers bundle beach-cast kelp and hang it from ropes in a method called hasagake.
After about 2 hours on the gravel beds, workers shift each strip so it no longer rests on the stones, then straighten any twists. This meticulous step is called suna-biki or suna-horoi.
After drying, long-cut kelp is trimmed to exactly 105 cm, sorted into 6 quality grades and packed in 20 kg bundles for inspection and shipment.
Erimo produces about 60% of Hidaka kelp, according to Hokkaido Prefecture, and the town says its harvest is entirely wild—not farmed. These drying grounds process a huge share of the region’s naturally growing crop.
Erimo’s kelp harvest once suffered from disaster on land: logging, overgrazing and locusts stripped vegetation, and blowing sand and mud polluted the sea as fish and kelp catches plunged. Restoration began in 1953.
Near Cape Erimo, 4 kelp species grow on rocky shores, and even Mitsuishi kelp differs in form east and west of the cape—a distinctive feature of these waters, according to Japan’s Environment Ministry.
Erimo’s coast had a kelp-trading history by 1669; by 1789, Ogoe—today’s Cape Erimo—was described as a “3,000-koku kelp district,” with a trading post.
Erimo’s heritage plan records that in the early 18th century, Tokachi Ainu traveled to Shoya to work in its rich fishery. It also notes that the wider place-contract system often involved harsh treatment and unfair trade for Ainu.
