Shintotsukawa 新十津川町

• Shintotsukawa (新十津川) is Japanese, not Ainu. It means "New Totsukawa". The settlers came from Totsukawa (十津川) in Yoshino District, Nara Prefecture, and chose the name to express their wish to "build a new Totsukawa here" and keep their home culture alive²⁵¹³.
• Tokku / Tokufutsu (トック・徳富): before settlement the area was called the Tokku plain (トック原野). The name comes from Ainu tokkuputo (トックプト), used for the area where the Tokufutsu River meets the Ishikari. Tok means "a bump or protrusion" and puto means "river mouth". The explorer Matsuura Takeshirō wrote the name as 突区. The settlers first wrote it 徳久 but soon changed it to 徳富, read "Toppu" for the river. The town suggests the character 富 ("wealth") carried their hopes for the new village¹⁷.
• Pinneshiri (ピンネシリ): Ainu for "male mountain". It pairs with Matsuneshiri (マツネシリ, 1,002 m), "female mountain", just to the southeast¹⁷. A town legend says the Ainu once called the peak Chisenesiri (チセネシリ), "house-shaped mountain". After people escaped a great storm on its slopes, they named the higher peak the male mountain and the lower one the female mountain²⁶. Some older documents write the peak as 地勢根尻山, from Chisenesiri²⁷.
• Other Ainu names in the town: Horoka (幌加), "turning back", for a side stream that bends back toward the sea. Rūku (留久), from ru-kus-pet, "the river the trail runs along", because the old road to Hamamasu followed it. Wakka (和歌), from wakka-wen-pet, "river of bad water", known locally by its translation Dorokawa ("mud river"). Sotchi (総富地), probably so-puchi, "mouth of the waterfall river", although an older Ainu place-name dictionary gives sopuchi and leaves the meaning unclear. Oshirarika (尾白利加), "a river flowing over rocks at its mouth". Shisun (志寸), from susu-un-nay, "stream with willows"¹⁷.

• Before settlement: the town's chronologies do not describe prehistoric sites or Ainu villages. In 1998 the Sōshin Fudōzaka site (総進不動坂遺跡) was reported to have yielded Middle Paleolithic stone tools. The find turned out to be fabricated, part of the nationwide Paleolithic hoax exposed in 2000, and a final report confirming the fabrication came out in March 2003²¹¹⁵.
• Edo-era contact: the explorer Matsuura Takeshirō surveyed the area in 1857 and wrote a poem about the "village of 突区 (Tokku)" in his Ishikari River diary¹⁵¹⁷. The sources consulted do not mention Matsumae-era trading posts in the town.
• 1889, the Totsukawa flood: in August 1889 days of torrential rain hit the Totsukawa district of Yoshino, Nara. Landslides dammed the valleys and the dams burst. The flood killed 168 people, destroyed or washed away 426 houses, buried 226 ha of farmland and left about 3,000 people without a livelihood¹. The pioneer museum gives 610 houses destroyed or damaged²⁸. Nagayama Takeshirō, head of the Hokkaido Agency (北海道長官), wrote to the governor of Nara recommending migration¹⁵.
• 1889–1890, the migration: 600 households (2,489 people) sailed from Kobe to Otaru in three groups in October 1889. They took the train to Ichikishiri (today's Mikasa) and walked on to Sorachibuto (today's Takikawa). Prisoners carried the sick, the elderly and children. The settlers wintered in half-built tondenhei houses there, four families to a house. In June 1890 they crossed the Ishikari River and settled the Tokku plain, the first colonial land lots laid out in Hokkaido¹¹⁵.
• Meiji pioneers: the settlers cleared forest and planted buckwheat and radishes in the first year¹¹. They opened two elementary schools in March 1891 and a private academy, the Bunbukan (文武館), in 1895, modeled on the one in their home village¹¹¹⁴. In January 1891 they enshrined the five deities of Totsukawa's Tamaki Shrine (玉置神社)¹⁴. Other key dates: a trial rice crop in 1893, a flax mill in 1896, an armyworm plague in 1897, a major Ishikari River flood in 1898 and placer gold found up the Sotchi River in 1901¹⁴. From the late 1890s, settlers from Hokuriku and other regions put rice growing on a full scale¹¹. In 1906, 90 subscribers founded Shintotsukawa Shuzo, today's Kinteki Shuzo²⁹. In 1908 settlers from Toyama Prefecture introduced lion-dance kagura, and in 1910 a pottery company opened in Hashimoto-chō¹⁴.
• Taishō–early Shōwa, rice country: the population passed 15,000 in the Taishō era. A cold-resistant rice variety, "Tamaki Bōzu" (玉置坊主), made the village one of Hokkaido's first-rank rice areas¹¹. The Sasshō Line reached Naka-Tokufutsu (later Shintotsukawa Station) in October 1931 and was completed in October 1935³⁰. Floods were frequent. The Tokufutsu River flood of August 1950 killed four people, according to the town chronology³⁰. Wikipedia, citing a contemporary newspaper, says 14 houses were swept away and 14 people went missing¹⁵.
• 1957–1980s: the village became a town in January 1957. Shintotsukawa Dam was completed in 1960, and more Ishikari River floods followed in 1961 and 1962³⁰. In June 1972 the Sasshō Line north of Shintotsukawa closed, leaving the town station as the terminus¹⁶. In 1980 the pioneer museum opened and the first Furusato Festival was held. In 1984 a whale fossil was found on the upper Horoka-Oshirarika River (幌加尾白利加川). The Green Park Shintotsukawa hot-spring hotel opened in 1988¹⁶.
• 1990s: the Shintotsukawa Product Center with its whale sign opened in 1991. NHK aired Shintotsukawa Monogatari in 1991–1992²¹. In May 1995 the Northern Sorachi Earthquake, centered in the town, damaged the western districts. In 1998 three farm co-ops merged into JA Pinne²¹.
• 2000s–2010s: the Takishin Bridge to Takikawa opened in 2002. The town sent ¥50 million to Totsukawa after Typhoon No. 12 hit the Kii Peninsula in 2011. Tokufutsu Dam went into service in April 2014²¹. From March 2016 only one round trip a day ran on the line to Shintotsukawa⁶.
• 2020s: the last train ran on 17 April 2020, brought forward by the COVID-19 emergency, and the line formally closed on 7 May 2020⁶³¹. The new town hall opened in May 2021³¹. On 7 June 2022 Hokkaido issued the town's first brown-bear advisory¹⁵. Also in 2022 the town reorganized its bus network and became an exchange partner of Gojō City in Nara³¹. The Station-site Sakura Park opened in October 2023³¹⁶. In August 2026 the operator of Green Park Shintotsukawa announced it would close the hotel³².

• Landforms: the eastern part of the town is alluvial farmland on the Ishikari Plain. The west is mountainous, with Shokanbetsu-dake (暑寒別岳) at the northwest corner and Pinneshiri at the western edge. The Tokufutsu River (徳富川) runs west to east through the middle of the town⁷. Forest covers 57% of the land by the town's 2022 land-use figures and farmland 12.5%⁷. The depopulation plan puts forest at 77% of the town area, with Hokkaido-owned forest given as 50% (the plan does not say whether this is a share of the forest or of the whole town)³.
• Mountains: Pinneshiri (1,100.4 m) sits on the border with Tobetsu. With Kamuishiri and Kumaneshiri it is one of the "Three Kabato Mountains" of the Kabato range, and a rain and snow radar station stands on its summit²⁷.
• Rivers and lakes: the Ishikari River forms the eastern border and the Oshirarika River the northern border with Uryu. Tributaries include the Sotchi and Shisun rivers¹⁷. The main reservoirs are the Rūku reservoir behind Shintotsukawa Dam in Yoshino, completed in 1960, and Tokufutsu Dam, known as "Toppu-ko" (トップ湖), in service since 2014^17302133.
• Climate: figures are from the JMA station at Sorachi-Yoshino (空知吉野, 100 m) in the west of the town, 1991–2020 normals. The annual mean is 6.6 °C, with −7.0 °C in January and 20.4 °C in August. Annual precipitation is 1,608.7 mm, and the wettest months are November (192.8 mm) and December (186.9 mm). Sunshine is 1,463.3 hours a year³⁴. The record high is 36.8 °C (7 August 2021) and the record low −30.2 °C (25 January 1985)³⁵. The station does not publish snow normals.

• Rice: rice covers about 80% of the town's farmland, mainly Nanatsuboshi (ななつぼし) and, increasingly, Yumepirika (ゆめぴりか)³. In 2016 the rice area was 3,570 ha, fifth in Hokkaido⁴. The harvest was 20,800 t in 2020³. Nanatsuboshi is the most widely planted variety, followed by Yumepirika and Fukkurinko (ふっくりんこ). A local "clean rice" growers' group produces rice with reduced chemical use⁴.
• Sake rice: the town began growing sake rice in 1998, mainly in the Gakuen and Tokufutsu districts, and now leads Hokkaido in sake-rice area and output³⁴. The main varieties are Ginpū (吟風) and Kitashizuku (きたしずく). A Kinteki sake brewed from Ginpū won a gold prize at the 2011 National New Sake Competition⁴²⁹. In December 2020 the town obtained a patent on using sake-rice flour³¹.
• Other farming: field crops include wheat, soybeans and buckwheat, as well as onions, cherry tomatoes and sweet corn. Wagyu calf breeding supplements rice farming³. The farm co-op is JA Pinne (JAピンネ), formed by a merger in 1998²¹. The town has run smart-farming trials since a demonstration consortium was set up in 2019²¹³.
• Decline: farm households fell from 743 in 1997 to 297 in 2020³. The population dropped 32% between 1975 and 2020. In 2020, 41.1% of residents were 65 or older, and the town projects 3,156 residents by 2051³. Sika deer and invasive raccoons damage crops³.
• Commerce and industry: apart from Kinteki Shuzo, founded in 1906 with nine full-time staff and about 100 kL of sake a year¹⁹, there is little manufacturing. Spending leaks to large stores in neighboring cities. The town counters this with point cards at local shops and the "Fureai" gift certificates, which its shopping street issued ahead of others in Hokkaido³.
• Tourism: the town's indicator for visits to tourist facilities and events (labeled a three-year average) stood at 168,000 in FY2019, then fell to 107,000 in FY2020 and 96,000 in FY2021 during the pandemic³³. The 2023–2027 tourism plan builds on the Totsukawa connection, Furusato Park and local food³³.

• Performing arts: the Shintotsukawa lion-dance kagura (獅子神楽) was introduced in 1908 by settlers from Toyama Prefecture. They wanted to give young people wholesome entertainment after the Russo-Japanese War. It is performed at the annual festival of Shintotsukawa Shrine (formerly Tamaki Shrine) and became the town's first designated intangible folk cultural property in 1983⁴⁷. The Shintotsukawa Odori folk-dance preservation society was founded in 1980¹⁶. The tourism plan also lists Tokufutsu taiko drumming and the shrine's mikoshi procession as living traditions³³.
• Kendo: the Totsukawa tradition of valuing "both letters and martial arts" (文武両道) lives on in the town's kendo halls, the Shōbukan (尚武館)¹¹³³. The junior high school team took second place nationally in 2005²¹.
• Shrines and temples: Shintotsukawa Shrine (新十津川神社, 中央37) enshrines the five deities of Totsukawa's Tamaki Shrine. The settlers first enshrined them in 1891. After the 1898 flood the shrine moved to its present higher ground, where the hall was rebuilt in 1915, and it took its present name in 1967. For its 100th anniversary in 1990, the mother village donated cedar and cypress timber for repairs⁴⁵. There is also a branch of Izumo Taisha (出雲大社新十津川分院)⁴⁸³³, and temples include Kōdaiji, Kōbōji, Enmanji and Anrakuji¹⁵.
• Cultural properties: an 1894 oil-on-canvas votive painting shows villagers at the Tamaki Shrine dedication, with stalls, fencing, shooting and dancing. It is the town's tangible cultural property No. 2 (2002) and hangs in the pioneer museum⁴⁹.
• Museums: the Pioneer Memorial Museum (開拓記念館) opened in 1980 for the town's 90th anniversary. It has seven themes, including the history of Totsukawa. The Agricultural Memorial Hall (農業記念館) recreates a 1921 cooperative building²⁸. The Shintotsukawa Monogatari Memorial Museum is modeled on the old Bunbukan academy. It shows manuscripts, NHK drama costumes and a 38-minute digest of the drama²⁰.

The town's history pages begin with the 1889 flood and the 1890 migration, and give little on Ainu life in the Tokku plain before settlement¹. The clearest traces are place names, several of which are explained under Name origin: Tokku (tokkuputo), Pinneshiri and Matsuneshiri, Horoka, Rūku, Wakka and Oshirarika¹⁷. Two hill names suggest Ainu land use. Chashi-pa-oma-nai (茶志麿間内), from chasi-pa-oma-nay, means "stream with a fort (chashi) at its upper end". Petotsurunbe (ペトツルンベ山) comes from pet-utor-un-p, "the one between the rivers"²⁷. No Ainu cultural facility or documented chashi site in the town was found in the sources consulted.

• Totsukawa Village, Nara Prefecture (母村): the "mother village" of the settlers. The two share the same emblem, adopted in 1983¹⁶. In August 2017 Nara Prefecture, Totsukawa and Shintotsukawa signed a cooperation agreement on promoting products and tourism. It was proposed by the Nara governor at the town's 60th anniversary ceremony that June. Since then the partners have held joint sales and PR events in Nara and Tokyo and developed new products together².
• Gojō City, Nara Prefecture: exchange city since October 2022³¹. Gojō sells its persimmons at the October taste festival³⁸.
• No international sister cities were found.

• Leonardo Kuma (レオナルド熊): comedian, born in the town¹⁵.
• Hachiro Yoshio (鉢呂吉雄): politician, born in the town. He served seven terms in the House of Representatives and one term in the House of Councillors (2016–2022), and was briefly Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry in 2011¹⁵⁷⁰.
• Nishida Nobuharu (西田信春): peace activist from the town who died under police torture in 1933. A monument to him stands in Nishida Park in Yamato¹⁵.
• Kawamura Takashi (川村たかし): author of Shintotsukawa Monogatari, which won the Sankei Children's Book Award grand prize and the Japan Children's Literature Association Award²⁰.
• Town ambassadors: mystery writer Nishimura Kyōtarō (appointed 2018, died 2022), who set a Totsukawa Keibu novel on the Sasshō Line; sculptor and designer Igarashi Takenobu (2019, died 2025); and singer-songwriter Sada Masashi (2019). Nishimura and Sada were also tourism ambassadors for Totsukawa⁵⁵¹⁵.