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Kushiro Shitsugen NP, Hokkaido
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Around Lake Toro, Ainu families gathered pekanpe—the spiny nuts of water-caltrop—by turning floating leaves over from boats. They dried the nuts for winter, or boiled them and cooked them with rice.
Until around 1990, Ainu people of Toro Kotan held the September Pekanpe Kamuy Nomi, thanking the kamuy for the water-caltrop harvest and praying for safe gathering. A 1958 film captured the ceremony.
Tōro comes from Ainu to-oro, meaning “the place with a lake or swamp.” The Japanese characters 塘路 were assigned to represent the sound, rather than translate it—so the place-name preserves an older local language.
At nearby Masakoyanosima, a 2011 excavation covering just 24.75 square metres recovered about 800 Late Jōmon pottery fragments, including pieces from 2–3 pots crushed together.
A Jōmon-style pit house on the nearby lakeshore trail was built by local volunteers. Because park rules meant they could not cut the reeds growing nearby, they brought the roof material from Shibetsu.
In deep winter, expanding ice on Lake Toro cracks and rises into a ridge that can look like a path across the lake. The phenomenon is called Omiwatari—“God’s Crossing”—and Arukotto has led winter walks to see it.
Arukotto’s panels evoke a wetland alder grove, while its cutaway models reveal yachimanako—small, bowl-shaped pools in the peat. In the Kushiro Marsh, one such pool was deeper than a 2-metre probe.
At Lake Toro’s wakasagi hatchery, workers use a bird feather to mix eggs and milt without damaging the eggs. The incubators use half groundwater and half river water; the groundwater stays a steady temperature year-round.
A local fisheries profile recorded about 30 cooperative members, but only 3 fishing wakasagi to avoid taking too many; others helped process the catch. The cooperative also developed canoe trips and guiding after the park was established.
On a center-led outing, participants counted 20–30 gray-heron nests in a nearby larch grove. In breeding season, the colony can make this lakeside neighborhood remarkably noisy.
While tracing colonial-era railway routes around Toro, an Arukotto staff member found useful prewar maps in Stanford University’s online collection. The maps show the route and even identify settlers’ regional origins.
