Koshimizu 小清水町

• A spring and a relay station: in 1890 a provisional prefectural road was cut between Abashiri and Kushiro, and in 1891 a relay station (駅逓, ekitei) opened on it. Near the Pon-Yanbetsu River (ポンヤンベツ川), in today's Motomachi 1-chōme, a spring of cold, clear water was popular with travelers. The station was named Koshimizu, "small clear water", after this spring.¹¹
• The Ainu river name: the name of the Pon-Yanbetsu River itself comes from Ainu pon ("small") and yam-pet ("clear-water river" in the town's gloss). Because the town grew up beside this river, both origins were in mind when the first village assembly chose the name Koshimizu Village in 1919.¹¹
• Yambetsu (止別): the coastal district and its river share the same root. One theory reads it as yam-pet ("cold river"). Another reads it as ya-wa-an-pet ("the river on the inland side"). Sources differ on which is right.²⁶
• Other Ainu names: Tōfutsu is from to-put, "the mouth of the lake".⁴ Furetoi (古樋, the old name of Hama-Koshimizu) is read either as hure-toy ("red earth") or hur-e-tuy-i ("the place where the hill breaks off"). The town's observatory page gives the second, since the spot is where the dunes end.²⁷¹⁷

• Prehistory: the Aoshimanai site (アオシマナイ遺跡) in Hama-Koshimizu is an Ainu chashi (fort) with a double moat. Digs in 1996–2000 dated it to the early modern Ainu period. Lower layers held Early Jōmon pottery and the remains of a large pit dwelling more than 9 m long, and the digs also turned up stone axes, shells and animal bones. The town calls it an important site for the study of both Okhotsk and Ainu culture.²⁸
• Ainu era: before Japanese settlement the Yambetsu plain was thick forest of oak, reeds and bush clover. Ainu families lived in small settlements at the mouth of the Yambetsu River, on the shore of Lake Tōfutsu, and near Tōtsurutō and Nikuru ponds (涛釣沼, ニクル沼).¹¹
• Edo period: the Shari trading post (シャリ場所) was set up in 1790. In 1801 the Hachiōji Sennin Dōshin, a band of shogunate retainers, cut the Shari Mountain Road (斜里山道) from Nijibetsu (now in Shibecha) past the east side of Lake Mashū into Shari District.¹²
• Early Meiji: in 1869 the area became Shari District in Kitami Province, first under the Nagoya domain and from 1870 under the Colonization Commission (開拓使). In 1875 the Ainu village names were written in kanji: Aoshimanai became Sōmai (蒼瑁) and Yamubetsu became Yambetsu (止別). A count in 1877 found 54 Ainu households (217 people) in the district, including 2 households in Sōmai and 5 in Yambetsu.¹⁵
• Roads and relay stations: the Furetoi relay station opened in Sōmai in 1886, with ferries across the Yambetsu River and Lake Tōfutsu. The Koshimizu relay station followed in 1891, run by Hanzawa Shinkichi (半沢真吉) from Miyagi.¹⁵
• Settlement: in 1901 a Tokyo man opened the Yamada ranch, and its manager, Sarashina Tetsutarō (更科鉄太郎), settled with four others. The town counts this as the start of permanent farm households. Settlers reached Yambetsu Nakajima in 1904.¹⁵ The town history records 13 group settlements (団体入植) from Toyama, Echigo (Niigata), Okayama, Tsugaru, Miyagi, Fukushima, Iwate, Tochigi, Shizuoka, Nara, Yamagata, Hiroshima and Aomori. Its outline of the settlement period does not mention any tondenhei (farmer-soldier) unit.²⁹
• 1909–1925: Koshimizu Shrine was founded in 1909. Shari Village was formed from five villages in 1915, and Koshimizu Village split from it in 1919 with 5,740 people. A flax mill opened in 1920 and a flour mill in 1922.¹⁵ The Senmō Line (now the JR Senmō Main Line) reached Shari on 10 November 1925, opening Furutoi (now Hama-Koshimizu) and Yambetsu stations.²⁷²⁶
• 1930–1939: the private Kitami Railway (北見鉄道) ran 8.89 km from Yambetsu inland to Koshimizu town, from 3 June 1930 to 25 August 1939, with four mixed trains each way per day.³⁰ On 19 June 1936 a total solar eclipse was observed at Koshimizu Elementary School.¹⁵
• War and after: the town took in people evacuated from bombed cities and, after the war, the Takuhoku Nōheitai (拓北農兵隊), a settler corps.²⁹ In 1946, 145 households of repatriates from Sakhalin and Manchuria and demobilized soldiers settled in the town.¹⁵
• Town status and peak: Koshimizu became a town in 1953, with 11,140 people.¹⁵ The population peaked at 11,517 in the 1960 Census and has fallen at every census since.⁷
• 1963–1991: the veterinarian Taketazu Minoru (竹田津実) worked at the town's farm mutual-aid livestock clinic. His fox research led to the 1978 film Kita-kitsune Monogatari (The Glacier Fox).³¹
• Tourism builds up (1980–1999): a hot spring was struck by drilling and the Maehama campground opened in 1980. The Furetoi Observatory followed in 1989, the onsen center in 1993, Highland Koshimizu 725 in 1995, Lily Park in 1997 and the Gensei-kaen information center HANA in 1999.¹⁵ Grazing and sparks from steam locomotives had kept the Gensei-kaen open until about 1980. After both stopped, tall grasses crowded out the flowers, and prescribed burning began in 1993.¹⁶
• 2000–2009: the Michi-no-Eki was registered on 18 August 2000 as Hokkaido's 70th roadside station.³²¹⁵ The Gensei-kaen became a Hokkaido Heritage in 2004,¹⁵ and Lake Tōfutsu a Ramsar site on 8 November 2005.³³ From 14 April 2007 JR Hokkaido ran trials of its DMV (Dual Mode Vehicle, a bus that also runs on rails) between Hama-Koshimizu and Mokoto stations.²⁷
• 2011–2013: a group of young residents set the Guinness dango record in February 2011.²⁰ In 2012 the town's elementary schools merged into one. In 2013 the Fukutaro cracker factory opened on 5 July in the former Hokuyō Elementary School, and a local history museum (郷土資料館) opened in the former Asahino Elementary School.¹⁵²⁰
• 2016–2019: furusato nozei donations peaked at ¥1.0 billion in FY2017.³⁴ Koshimizu High School closed on 31 March 2018,¹² and the Koshimizu Tourist Center opened in April 2018.³⁵ The town calls 2018 its 140th year since 1879 and 100th as a municipality, and its chronology lists the centennial ceremony under 2018. The first Okhotsk SEA TO SUMMIT followed in 2019.¹¹¹⁵
• Recent years: the Agri-Heart Center "Felice" (アグリハートセンター「フェリーチェ」) was completed in 2022.¹⁵ The town office moved into a new building on 8 May 2023, designed to double as a disaster-response base.¹² The Michi-no-Eki reopened after renovation on 1 March 2024.³⁶ In September 2026 the Mt. Mokoto trail was closed for several days after brown bear sightings.³⁷³⁸

• Landforms: the land is highest in the south and slopes gently north to a coastal plain on the Sea of Okhotsk.² The south of the town is mountainous, around Mt. Mokoto and the rim above Lake Kussharo.¹¹
• Coast: the Gensei-kaen covers a narrow dune about 8 km long between the sea and Lake Tōfutsu. The town calls its beach the northernmost "singing sand" (鳴き砂) beach in Japan.³ To the east, the Yambetsu Coastal Forest (止別海岸治山の森) covers 171 ha. Planting began in 1937 to protect farmland from storm surges and salt spray.³⁹
• Lake Tōfutsu (濤沸湖): a brackish lagoon formed when a sandbar closed off a shallow bay. The town gives it a shoreline of 27.3 km and an area of about 900 ha.⁴ The Geospatial Information Authority (GSI) gives 8.19 km², of which 3.55 km² lies in Koshimizu and 4.64 km² in Abashiri.⁹ The lake averages only about 0.7 m deep (2.5 m at most). It became a national wildlife protection area on 16 October 1992.³³
• Mt. Mokoto (藻琴山): a 999.9 m stratovolcano shared with Teshikaga, Ozora and Bihoro. It is the highest point on the outer rim of the Kussharo caldera and a divide between the Kushiro River (Pacific) and Abashiri River (Okhotsk) systems.¹³
• Parks: the coast and Lake Tōfutsu are in Abashiri Quasi-National Park (網走国定公園, created 1 July 1958).⁴⁰ Mt. Mokoto is in Akan-Mashū National Park (阿寒摩周国立公園).¹³
• Climate type: the town describes an "Okhotsk-type" climate shaped by the sea's currents, sea fog and drift ice. Spring comes in mid-April, and summer is warm but short. Winters are long, with fairly light snow but severe ground blizzards (地吹雪).⁴¹ Rainfall is low all year, and the share of sunshine is among the highest in Japan. Drift ice arrives in February–March.²
• Climate figures: the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) station is at Izumi (泉), 52 m above sea level.¹² Its 1991–2020 normals give an annual mean of 6.4°C, 796.2 mm of precipitation and 1,702.6 hours of sunshine.⁴² Its records, kept since October 1977, are 37.8°C on 24 July 2025 and −32.8°C on 24 February 1978.⁴³ Japanese Wikipedia says the town is a designated heavy-snow area (豪雪地帯).¹² The town's own JMA summary for 2018–2022 shows yearly highs of 32.9–36.7°C (the highest on 26 May 2019) and yearly lows of −21.1 to −25.0°C.¹¹ In 2020 the monthly snowfall figures add up to 258 cm, and snow was deepest at 44 cm, in March.²²

• A farming town: the town calls itself a "pure farming village" built on crop farming and dairy. At the 2020 Census 40.2% of workers were in farming. The primary sector as a whole was 41.7%, the secondary sector 10.3% and the tertiary sector 48.0%.¹¹⁷
• Crops (2020): 293 farm households worked 10,400 ha of planted land. Wheat and barley covered 2,860 ha, industrial crops (mostly sugar beet) 2,790 ha, potatoes 2,250 ha and soybeans 286 ha. Harvests were 101,900 t of potatoes, 19,300 t of wheat and barley, 211,500 t of industrial crops and 742 t of soybeans.²²
• Livestock (2020): 35 dairy farms kept 4,136 dairy cattle, and 25 farms kept 1,909 beef cattle.²²
• Farm output: ¥11,363 million from crops and ¥3,206 million from livestock in 2020, a total of ¥14,569 million. The FY2021–2025 plan aimed for ¥14,675 million.²²
• Farming methods: the plan promotes "Koshimizu-style" recycling farming, in which crop farms and livestock farms work together and the town's branded "NK Yūsui" (NKゆう水) is returned to the fields to build up the soil (the plan does not say what it is made from). Its pest-control priorities include the potato cyst nematode (ジャガイモシロシストセンチュウ) and wheat yellow mosaic.²² JA Koshimizu (JAこしみず) markets asparagus, broccoli, mini tomatoes, carrots, onions, potatoes and burdock, along with wheat, sugar beet and soybeans.⁴⁴
• Manufacturing: the Hogaja Koshimizu Hokuyō factory of the Kyushu-based Yamaguchi Aburaya Fukutaro group (山口油屋福太郎) can make about 200,000 crackers a day at peak.⁶
• Tourism: Hokkaido's survey counted 548,700 visitors in FY2025, up 12.9% on the previous year. Nearly all came for the day: only 2,600 stayed overnight, for 4,700 guest-nights. About 350,500 came from outside Hokkaido, and August was the busiest month (87,500).⁴⁵
• Furusato nozei: the town received 16,726 donations worth ¥1,002 million in FY2017, but 1,965 donations worth ¥42.3 million in FY2025.³⁴
• Population decline: 11,517 (1960) → 5,085 (2015) → 4,623 (2020) → 4,195 (2025, preliminary).⁷⁸ In FY2016–2020 the town recorded 24–36 births and 65–101 deaths a year.²²
• Revitalization: the 6th General Plan (FY2020) focuses on four areas: settlement, marriage and child-rearing, job creation, and cooperation with other areas.¹¹ The Agri-Heart Center makes and sells processed farm products and trains new farmers.²² The town has partnership agreements with companies including mont-bell (2017), Renaissance (2020) and Satudora Holdings (2022),¹⁵ and with HTB (Hokkaido Television Broadcasting), Nomura Co. (乃村工藝社), OKULAB and Kitami Nissan.⁴⁶

• Koshimizu Shrine (小清水神社): founded in 1909, with its first festival on 14–15 September that year. The shrine buildings were renovated in 2010.¹⁵
• Performing arts: the 16th Koshimizu Furusato Yose (小清水ふるさと寄席), a rakugo storytelling show by Katsura Yamato (桂やまと), is set for 19 November 2026, with afternoon and evening shows (¥1,500 each) at the Community Plaza (town library) hall.⁶¹
• Museums: the local history museum (郷土資料館) opened in 2013 in the former Asahino Elementary School (hours not confirmed).¹⁵ The HANA information center has a large-screen theater on the seasons and displays on the history of the meadow.⁶²
• Town history: the official history, Shin Koshimizu Chōshi (新小清水町史), can be read online in the town's digital archive.²⁹
• Hometown associations: former residents run associations in Tokyo (founded 1989), Sapporo (1997) and Kitami (1997).⁶³

• Settlements: before Japanese settlement, Ainu lived in small settlements at the mouth of the Yambetsu River, on the shore of Lake Tōfutsu, and by Tōtsurutō and Nikuru ponds.¹¹ A count in 1877 found 2 Ainu households in Sōmai and 5 in Yambetsu, out of 54 households (217 people) in Shari District.¹⁵
• Aoshimanai site (アオシマナイ遺跡, Hama-Koshimizu 270–272): found in May 1967. It is the site of an Ainu chashi with a double moat and a channel from the lake that let boats reach its foot. Many Ezo deer skulls with signs of deliberate working were found, which suggests that a deer-sending ceremony (シカ送り) was held here. The town notes that no large deer ceremony on the scale of the bear iomante is recorded elsewhere, and suggests that a community here may have held one. Forest now covers the terrace, and there are few visitor facilities.²⁸
• Place names: Koshimizu (from pon yam-pet), Yambetsu (yam-pet), Tōfutsu (to-put) and Furetoi all come from Ainu.^1126417 Lake Tōfutsu was also called Chikap-un-to (チカプントー), "the lake where birds always are".⁴ Mt. Mokoto's Ainu name is recorded as Tōetokushipe (トーエトクシペ).¹³ Sōmai (蒼瑁), the old coastal village, was Aoshimanai until 1875.¹⁵
• Facilities: no Ainu cultural facility or regular living-tradition event in the town could be confirmed.

None found. The town's partnership agreements are with companies, not with other municipalities.⁴⁶¹⁵ Former residents keep up ties through the Tokyo, Sapporo and Kitami Koshimizu associations.⁶³

• Kojima Futoshi (小島太, b. 1947): born in Koshimizu. As a jockey he won the Japanese Derby twice, on Sakura Shōri (1978) and Sakura Chiyono O (1988). As a trainer he handled Eagle Cafe and Manhattan Cafe.⁷⁹
• Hayashi Kaoru (林郁, b. 1959): born in Koshimizu. Co-founder and CEO of Digital Garage and chairman of Kakaku.com.⁸⁰
• Taketazu Minoru (竹田津実, b. 1937): veterinarian, writer and wildlife photographer from Ōita. He worked in Koshimizu from 1963 to 1991, and his fox research led to the film Kita-kitsune Monogatari.³¹