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Akan-Mashū NP, Hokkaido
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At Wakoto Peninsula, an Ainu name for the black woodpecker is ciptacikap, “boat-carving bird.” A traditional story says its tree cavities inspired people to make dugout canoes.
Near active Mount Io, sulfurous fumes have acidified the soil so much that other firs and spruces struggle. The nearby Kawayu trail passes through a striking pure stand of Sakhalin spruce.
From Kawayu’s forest, Tsutsujigahara Trail leads into volcanic heath where mountain pine and alpine plants grow at low elevation. In early summer, Labrador tea blooms across a white carpet of about 100 hectares.
In the Akan area, a 2022 agreement made about 3,000 hectares of national forest available for shared Ainu use. Permitted gathering includes ritual branches, craft materials, wild vegetables and mushrooms.
Kawayu’s nutrient-poor volcanic soil still supports many Sakhalin spruces aged 150–200 years. Look for the black woodpecker’s large, oval feeding scars in their trunks.
Gozen-tachibana, or bunchberry, makes a spring flower carpet beneath Kawayu’s spruce trees. In Honshu it is usually found in subalpine or alpine areas, but in Hokkaido it also grows at lower elevations.
On Kawayu’s spruce-forest trail, fallen trunks help young trees take root. When a spruce falls, the new gap also lets sunlight reach the ground, giving broad-leaved trees room to grow.
A park ranger following tiny tracks on Kawayu’s spruce trail found a mouse traveling beneath the snow in the gap above dwarf bamboo. It surfaced to cross the packed path, leaving a fine tail-drag line.
At Wakoto Peninsula, geothermal warmth shapes forest life: min-min cicadas live at their northern limit, and ground crickets can remain active in winter on soil that is not covered by snow.
At Wakoto, katsura trees can keep growing even after an old trunk dies: younger stems rise from it and gradually surround it. Their fallen autumn leaves give off a sweet scent like caramel or cotton candy.
About 70% of Akan-Mashū’s forests are coniferous; the other 30% is broad-leaved, including mizunara oak, Japanese elm, linden and maple. That mix creates varied food and habitat for wildlife.
