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Shikotsu-Tōya NP., Hokkaido
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Lake Toya’s “submerged forest” is no legend: a 7.8 m standing elm trunk was rediscovered in 2019. Tree-ring work places its growth at 1502–1663; exactly how it sank remains uncertain.
An Ainu legend recorded by scholar Mashiho Chiri gives Lake Toya a winged-serpent ruler: it rises from the water, complains of the cold and asks people to light a fire. This is folklore, not a wildlife report.
Lake Toya’s kokanee (himemasu) is a local fishery catch, but its ancestors arrived as eggs from nearby Lake Shikotsu in 1908–1911. Today, the lake’s cooperative sells its catch as a rare freshwater product.
Nakajima’s wild sika deer population began with just 3 animals brought there between 1957 and 1965. With no large predators, deer once numbered more than 450 and heavily reshaped the island’s vegetation.
Lake Toya’s long-run fireworks began in 1982 as a recovery idea: after Usu’s 1977 eruption and a 1978 mudflow, visitors stayed away, so local tourism leaders created a nightly reason to linger.
A volcano grew inside Lake Toya’s volcano: the huge eruption about 110,000 years ago formed the caldera; repeated eruptions around 45,000 years ago later built its 4 central islands from lava domes.
Lake Toya’s hot-spring town owes its beginning to Usu: during the 1910 eruption, warm water was noted at the lakeshore, and a 42°C spring was later found. The first inn opened in 1917.
“Toya” comes from Ainu to-ya, meaning “lake shore”: to means lake and ya means shore. Ainu scholar Mashiho Chiri also wrote that the water itself was called simply to.
The lake’s boat service started as a timber job, not a sightseeing cruise: boats began hauling felled wood from Nakajima in 1886. After World War II ended the timber demand, the business switched to tourist trips.
Lake Toya’s power-water diversion came with a hidden cost: from 1939 it also carried acidic drainage from the Horobetsu sulfur mine. The lake’s pH fell to about 5 by 1970; neutralization later helped restore it toward 7.
Lake Toya has long been known as one of Hokkaido’s non-freezing freshwater lakes. Its 180 m depth and enormous water volume take a long time to cool, though severe cold can still freeze patches.
Lake Toya’s sculpture park began with a farewell: its first work, Kan Yasuda’s 1984 “Kaisei” (“Resurrection”), was erected by former patients as a prefectural teachers’ rest home closed.
