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Kushiro Shitsugen NP, Hokkaido
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It was imagined as a boat floating on the marsh, inspired by yachibozu sedge mounds. Kushiro-born architect Mozuna Kiko won the 1985 Architectural Institute of Japan Prize for this design and the city museum.
The observatory’s rest house has offered a seasonal “Tancho Soft,” made with locally grown Tancho strawberries and decorated to evoke a red-crowned crane—a sweet little salute to Kushiro’s signature bird.
It’s a 2-m wooden itō, or Japanese huchen, modeled on one of the largest reported from Kushiro Marsh. The living fish is a formidable predator: big adults can eat frogs, mice and even snakes.
Yes—the boardwalk connects to the separate Hokuto Site, where 334 ancient house-pit hollows remain: 102 from Jōmon and Epi-Jōmon times, and 232 from the later Satsumon period.
Kushiro Marsh was once considered land of little use, and development was shrinking and drying it. Local researchers and conservation groups helped change its fortunes: it became Japan’s first Ramsar wetland in 1980 and a national park in 1987.
About 6,000 years ago, the land beneath today’s marsh was underwater. As the sea retreated and dunes sealed the bay, it became a brackish swamp around 3,000 years ago—the beginnings of the wetland visitors see today.
Yachibozu are mounds made by sedges, not stone or soil sculptures. Winter frost lifts each clump; spring meltwater erodes soil around its base. Repeated cycles build these curious heads to about 40–50 cm tall.
Not even close: reed-and-sedge marsh covers about 80% of Kushiro Marsh, while raised sphagnum bog accounts for only about 2%. The vast landscape from the observatory is a patchwork of wetland types.
Its boardwalk links into a longer trail toward Onnenai that follows part of the former Tsurui light-rail route. The track carried traffic from 1929 to 1968; today, walkers follow its old corridor through the wetland landscape.
