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Daisetsuzan NP, Hokkaido
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This forest fills a caldera formed by an eruption about 1 million years ago that expelled more than 130 km³ of volcanic material. A lake later occupied the basin; sediment and vegetation eventually transformed it into forest.
Pockets of permafrost survive in the forest’s 13- and 14-sawa valleys at just 770–900 m—unusually low for Japan. Buried wood suggests the ground froze around 4,500 years ago, long after the last ice age.
Before the railway reached this remote basin, logs were sent down the Otofuke River. In the logging boom, 60–70 timber wagons left Tokachi-Mitsumata Station daily, after the Shihoro Line connected the village to a logging railway.
Family-run Mitsumata Sanso opened here in 1977. Its “Ranch Beef Rice” tops rice with a patty combining Tokachi Shimizu pasture-raised beef and grated yam—a distinctly local twist in this former logging village.
At its mid-century peak, this remote settlement held about 1,500 people and had its own elementary and junior high schools. A park ranger also records local recollections of a sumo ring at the village shrine.
A botanical survey catalogued 325 plant species in a Tokachi-Mitsumata study area of only about 3 km². Conifer forest, wetlands, riverbanks and disturbed ground make this basin a patchwork of habitats, not just one uniform sea of trees.
Researchers followed a forest plot recovering from the 1954 windthrow for 60 years; it was one of only 3 Hokkaido sites tracked that long. By 2014, standing timber volume was 1.8 times its estimated pre-storm level.
Park staff and volunteers are helping former settlement grounds—including the old school site—return to forest. By 2020, 17 deer-exclusion plots held more than 190 planted trees; some seedlings were rescued from roadside clearing.
