Makkari 真狩村

• Makkari (真狩). The name comes from the Ainu name of the Makkari River. The village gives the Ainu form as Makkaripet (マクカリペッ), "the river that encircles Mount Yōtei".¹ The village's page on Makkari River Park glosses mak-kari-betsu as "the river that goes around toward the mountain".²⁴
• The Hokkaido Government's Ainu place-name list gives two readings. Nagata Hōsei read mak-kari-p as "the place that goes around behind the mountain" and mak-kari-pet as "the river that goes around behind the mountain". Yamada Shūzō read mak-kari-pet as "the river that goes around on the far (mountain) side". He suggested the name comes from the many bends in the river, even far upstream. The list rates the name "C", meaning it cannot be pinned down with certainty.²⁵
• Mount Yōtei was also called Makkari Nupuri (マッカリヌプリ), "Makkari mountain".¹⁷
• Makkaribetsu (真狩別). From 1922 to 1941 the village used this longer form of the same name.⁶ "Makkari" was also the first name of today's JR Niseko Station. It opened as Makkari Station in 1904 and was renamed Kaributo (狩太) in 1906 and Niseko in 1968.²⁶

• Before settlement. Japanese Wikipedia says people have lived here since the Jōmon period, but no named archaeological site was found in village sources.⁶ In 1799 the area came under direct shogunate rule.⁶
• Matsuura Takeshirō. The explorer's journal of his trip around Mount Yōtei (後方羊蹄日誌) is the first written record of the area, which he calls "Makkarihetsu". The village timeline dates the entry to 1857, and the village's 2026 plan gives 1859 as the journal's publication year.¹⁰²
• 1895: first settlers. Five households (18 people) from Kagawa and Fukushima prefectures settled on the Makkaribetsu plain. The village counts this as its founding.¹⁰
• 1897–1910. Makkari split from Abuta Village (1897). An elementary school opened in 1898, and the village became a second-class village in 1906.¹⁰ Makkari Shrine was completed in 1909, and the same year the Teikoku Seima company opened a flax mill. The mill closed in 1927.¹⁰¹² In 1910 the village moved from Muroran's jurisdiction to Shiribeshi.¹⁰
• 1918: the dog Pochi. On the night of 16–17 January, the village postmaster, Murakami Seitarō, collapsed in a blizzard while delivering a telegram. His dog Pochi stayed beside him and tried to fetch help.²⁷
• 1920s disasters and the split. A landslide on Mount Yōtei buried about 80 chōbu (roughly 80 ha) of farmland in 1920.¹¹ In April 1922 the western districts split off as Makkaribetsu Village.⁶² A debris flow hit the 5th district at the foot of Yōtei in 1928.¹²
• 1930s–1950s. Katsura trees were planted at the nursery entrance in 1931, a year of severe crop failure.¹² A colonial light railway (殖民軌道), horse-drawn at first and later petrol-powered, linked Makkaribetsu with Kaributo (now Niseko Station). The village timeline gives its opening as 1935. Japanese Wikipedia says it ran from January 1936 until 1953.¹²²⁶ The village took the name Makkari in 1941.¹² Potatoes and starch-making were the backbone of the farm economy.²
• Postwar decline. The population fell from 5,567 in 1955 to 3,197 in 1975 as young people left for the cities.²
• 1961: lily bulbs. Saitō Yukio began multiplying a local lily strain. A growers' association formed in 1966 and full-scale growing began.³
• 1970s–80s. Takashi Hosokawa debuted in 1975. The 1977 eruption of Mount Usu covered the whole village in ash.¹² Makkari Kōgen ski area opened in 1981. The local history museum was completed in 1988 and opened in May 1989.¹²¹³
• 1990s: onsen and flowers. Drillers struck hot water in 1990. Makkari Onsen opened in 1993–94, and the Hosokawa statue was unveiled for the village centenary in July 1994.¹³ In 1997 the Makkari farm co-op merged into JA Yōtei. The same year Maccarina, the Flower Center and cottages at the lily garden opened.¹³
• 2000s. A five-town merger council (Rankoshi, Niseko, Makkari, Kimobetsu, Kutchan) was dissolved in December 2004. Makkari also left a three-town study group in 2008.¹³ The Flower Center reopened as a Michi-no-Eki in April 2006. In July 2008 Maccarina hosted the G8 summit spouses' lunch.¹³
• Recent years. Typhoon No. 10 caused storm damage in 2016. The 2018 Hokkaido Eastern Iburi Earthquake reached intensity 4 here and cut power across Hokkaido.¹³ The Hokuhoku festival was cancelled for the first time in 2020 because of COVID-19.²⁸ The village declared itself a "Zero Carbon City" in March 2022.² An elementary school closed in March 2023, and 2024 marked the village's 130th year.²⁸

• Setting. Makkari lies on the south foot of Mount Yōtei. Yōtei is a 1,898 m stratovolcano in Shikotsu-Tōya National Park and one of Japan's 100 Famous Mountains.¹⁷ The land is a rolling upland. It levels into terraces toward Rusutsu in the east. The Chiraibetsu hills separate it from Niseko and Toyoura in the west, and the Nukkibetsu River forms the border with Tōyako in the south.² Mount Shiribetsu (尻別岳, about 1,107 m), which straddles Makkari, Rusutsu and Kimobetsu, rises in the east.⁶²⁹
• Rivers. The Makkari and Chiraibetsu rivers belong to the Shiribetsu River system.⁶ Dolly Varden trout (オショロコマ) live in the upper reaches of the Makkari River.²⁴
• Groundwater. Rain and snow soak through Yōtei's porous lava and ash, then come out where the lava meets clay.⁴ The village passed a groundwater protection ordinance in 2014.¹³
• Forests. Forest covers 6,609 ha. Planted forest, mostly larch and Sakhalin fir, makes up 1,418 ha (22%).²
• Climate. At the JMA Makkari station (440 m), the 1991–2020 annual mean is 5.8 °C. The average August high is 23.4 °C, and the average January low is −10.4 °C. Annual precipitation is 1,333.8 mm.³⁰ The record high is 32.3 °C (27 July 2021, equalling 9 August 1999), and the record low is −22.1 °C (25 January 2018).³¹
• Snow. The village calls itself one of Hokkaido's heaviest-snow areas. Strong northwest winds blow in winter. Snow usually starts in late November or early December and lies until about mid-April.² The JMA station does not measure snow depth.³⁰

• Farming. Farming is the main industry. The chief crops are potatoes, daikon, carrots and Chinese yam (nagaimo). In the Meiji and Taishō eras many starch factories processed the potato crop.²¹ The village had 125 farm households in 2020, down from 193 in 2000.² Farm work (the primary sector) employed 39.5% of the 1,136 working residents in 2020, and services (the tertiary sector) 53.1%.² The local farm co-op is the Makkari branch of JA Yōtei.⁶
• Lily bulbs. Growers plant the Shirogane (白銀) variety, bred from the less bitter Lilium leichtlinii (コオニユリ).³ Bulbs spend each summer in the ground. Each winter they are dug up and rest in sawdust, then they are replanted in a new field in spring. Growers pinch off the flower buds so that the bulbs fatten, and they harvest in the autumn of the fifth year, almost entirely by hand.¹⁶ The village says its 2025 crop of 417 t was the largest in Japan.³
• Flowers. A JA flower shipping and storage facility opened in 1990.¹³ The Flower Center was built in 1997 to promote flower growing and flower tourism.³²
• Commerce. In 2021 the village had 25 shops with ¥6.21 billion in annual sales.² Farmers, newcomers and regional-revitalization volunteers keep opening cafés and restaurants. Long-standing shops selling groceries and daily goods are closing as owners age without successors.²
• Tourism. Visitor numbers fell from 817,339 in FY2019 to 594,091 in FY2024; 23,635 of the FY2024 visitors stayed overnight.² The village plan admits Makkari has no big tourist draw. It relies on its position between the Niseko and Rusutsu resorts, its view of Yōtei and its farm food.² Makkari Onsen passed 1 million visitors in 2001.¹³
• Population and aging. In 2020, 34.5% of residents were 65 or older, compared with 31.8% for Hokkaido.² The village aims to keep the population at about 1,850.²
• Revitalization. Makkari High School started organic-farming and vegetable-and-confectionery courses in 2013. Its students opened a café, "La mikka", at the Flower Center in 2015.¹³ Other projects include housing for young families (2016), a share house at the Flower Center (2018) and carbon credits (J-credits) from village forests.¹³²
• Furusato nozei. In FY2024 the village received 750 hometown-tax donations worth ¥26.08 million. The peak was FY2020, with 1,475 donations worth ¥33.66 million.³³

• Performing arts. The village designated three folk performing arts as intangible cultural properties on 30 May 2006.⁴⁷ Urayasu-no-mai (浦安の舞) is a kagura dance first offered at the shrine on Kigensetsu (National Foundation Day) in 1940. Akasaka Yakko (赤坂奴) is a troupe formed in 1959. Makkari Iwai-daiko (真狩祝い太鼓) is a festival drum piece composed by Hideaki Yashima.²
• Makkari Shrine (真狩神社) was completed in 1909–10.¹⁰⁴⁶
• Yōtei Furusato-kan (羊蹄ふるさと館), the village history museum, holds about 2,000 items on settlement life, including a water wheel, farm tools and musical instruments. It is closed for now except for about a week in early August and visits by appointment.⁴⁷
• The story of Pochi (名犬ポチ). Postmaster Murakami's grave is at Shinryūji temple (真龍寺). In autumn 1987 Makkari High School students, who had turned the story into a picture-card show, found Pochi's stuffed body at the Teishin (Communications) Museum in Tokyo on a school trip. Pochi came home after 69 years. The Pochi page dates the homecoming to the following year, while the village timeline lists it under 1987.²⁷¹² Pochi is now displayed at the village community hall.²⁷

Little is documented. The village name and the old name of Mount Yōtei, Makkari Nupuri, come from Ainu.²⁵¹⁷ The village's own history begins with Matsuura Takeshirō's 1850s journal and the 1895 settlers.¹⁰ No Ainu cultural site, collection or living tradition was found in village sources. The village museum's listed holdings focus on settler life.⁴⁷ The nearest major Ainu cultural facility is Upopoy in Shiraoi.

• Kanonji, Kagawa Prefecture (観音寺市). The tie began with the town of Ōnohara (大野原町) on 9 October 1991. Ōnohara is now part of Kanonji, and the village lists Kanonji as its sister city.¹¹³⁶ Makkari's Urayasu-no-mai dancers performed at Ōnohara's 350th-anniversary festival in 1993, and the village sent a visiting delegation in 2015. Some of the first settlers in 1895 came from Kagawa.¹³¹⁰

• Takashi Hosokawa (細川たかし), enka singer born in Makkari. He debuted in 1975 with "Kokoro-nokori" (心のこり) and won the Japan Record Award two years in a row in 1982–83. He received the village's citizen honor award in 1980.⁵¹²
• Hideaki Yashima (八洲秀章, 1915–1985), composer, real name Suzuki Yoshimitsu. He wrote "Azami no Uta", "Sakuragai no Uta" and "Marimo no Uta", and composed the Makkari Iwai-daiko drum piece.⁵⁰⁵²
• Aritoku Ichihara (一原有徳), printmaker, whom the village lists among its associated figures.¹
• Jun Sawaki (沢木順), actor.⁶