Suttsu 寿都町

"Suttsu" is an Ainu name that was later written with lucky kanji. The town's heritage plan traces it to shupki pet (シュプキ ペツ, "river with much reed grass"), which was worn down to Sututsu-hetsu (スツツヘツ). The name first meant today's Shubuto River (朱太川). A trading post was set up in the area around the river, and the post took its name.¹⁰ Nagata Hōsei's (永田方正) Ainu place-name dictionary, Hokkaidō Ezo-go Chimei-kai (北海道蝦夷語地名解), reads it as syupki-pet, "a river with reeds used for arrow shafts". The dictionary mentions a second theory, shuf, "a rocky point overgrown with reeds", and rejects it.⁵

When Ezo was renamed Hokkaido in 1869, the Matsumae trading posts became districts. Their names followed proposals by the explorer Matsuura Takeshirō (松浦武四郎). The Suttsu post became Suttsu District, Otasutsu became Utasutsu District and Isoya became Isoya District.¹⁰ In the Meiji era the name came to be written 寿都, "capital of longevity".¹⁵

Other Ainu-derived names in town, as glossed by the heritage plan:¹⁰

• Masutomari (政泊): mata tomari, "winter harbor"
• Tarukishi (樽岸): taraekishinai, "long beach". Another reading is taro kesh, "below the high shore". An inland road was cut here in the late Edo period because the shore could not be walked.
• Yubetsu (湯別): yu pet, "hot-spring river"
• Utasutsu (歌棄): ota sut, "river flowing across the sand beach"
• Isoya (磯谷): esoya / ishoya, "place with many reefs"
• Benkei (弁慶): said to come from perkei, a cape "whose tip looks split". The name was later tied to the Benkei legend.¹⁷¹⁶

• Prehistory. The town has 43 known archaeological sites. The oldest finds are stone tools from Yubetsu, about 12,000 years old. Many Jōmon sites cluster around the Shubuto River mouth, most of them dating from about 4,000 years ago, together with Satsumon-period sites and Ainu graves.¹⁰ The Tarukishi site (樽岸遺跡) was excavated in 1954 by a team led by the Hakodate City Museum.¹⁷
• Matsumae trading posts. Wajin (ethnic Japanese) had probably settled here by the 15th century.¹⁰ A 1604 record lists Suttsu, Otasutsu and Isoya as Matsumae-domain trading posts (商場), where Wajin traded everyday goods with the Ainu. The town counts its founding from 1669, when the area appears in records of Shakushain's War.¹⁰
• The herring boom. In 1688 women were banned from travelling north of Cape Kamui, and after the ban more fishermen settled in Suttsu for good. In 1850 herring pound nets (建網) were first set at Otasutsu and Isoya, and Suttsu calls itself the birthplace of this method.¹ From 1852 the Satō family ("Kakujū") ran the Utasutsu and Isoya posts as contractors (場所請負人); they were the last contractors before the Meiji reforms. The heritage plan says the first Satō Sadaemon paid for about 20 km of road toward Kuromatsunai and Raiden himself, and it was finished in 1856.¹⁰ The town's history page instead credits the first family head, Satō Isaemon, working with his adoptive father Sadaemon.²⁰ Herring products went by sea to Honshu. Many Suttsu families trace their roots to the Sea of Japan coast of Tōhoku, Hokuriku and Shin'etsu.¹⁰
• Northern defence. In 1855 the Tsugaru domain set up an outpost on the site of today's Withcom cultural center. The heritage plan counts 13 samurai houses and about 100 samurai, who left in 1868; the town's history page says about 150.¹⁰¹ Also in 1855, a Russian ship fired three blank shots and anchored off Benkei Cape.¹⁰
• Meiji. In 1869 Suttsu, Utasutsu and Isoya districts were created. District offices opened in 1879, and weather observations began at the district office in 1884.¹ A Russian Orthodox meeting house in Suttsu is listed in the church's 1882 records, with 11 believers.¹⁰ Suttsu Lighthouse on Benkei Cape dates from 1889 according to the town (1890 according to the roadside-station site).¹¹⁶ From 1897 to 1910 Suttsu Subprefecture governed four districts.¹
• Fires, railway and mine. Big fires burned 272 houses in 1914 and 131 in 1924.¹ After them, many shops added fire-proof dozō storehouses, and many of these still stand.¹⁰ The private Suttsu Railway (寿都鉄道) ran 16.5 km to Kuromatsunai on the main line. Its first locomotive ran on 27 October 1920 (the town's statistics book gives 1919). Traffic peaked at about 310,000 passengers in 1946. In November 1952 it put Hokkaido's first commercial diesel into service.²⁰² Flood damage stopped the line on 14 August 1968, and it was formally abolished in 1972.⁵¹ The Suttsu mine produced silver in the Meiji era and zinc and lead from the Taishō era.¹⁰ The Mitsubishi mine closed in 1962.⁵
• War and the end of herring. The Tōkai Maru was sunk in Suttsu Bay in 1945, and the town was bombed in July 1945.¹¹⁰ The last herring spawning runs (群来) came in 1945 and 1946. Fishermen then turned to salmon releases, scallop and oyster farming, and seafood processing.¹⁰
• The 1955 merger. In Isoya, opponents of the merger held protest marches with straw-mat banners.¹⁰ The Kita-Shiribetsu (北尻別) area went to Rankoshi, in 1956 according to Japanese Wikipedia.⁵ The town held its 300th-anniversary celebrations in 1973.¹
• Wind and onsen era.
  • 1989: the first municipal wind plant was completed.²
  • 1991: a hot spring was struck at Yubetsu. Six primary schools merged into Shioji Elementary the same year.¹
  • 1992: the mascot Fūta was created.¹
  • December 1995: Yubetsu no Yu opened.¹
  • 2007: the Fūta wind farm opened with five turbines.²
  • 26 April 2008: the roadside station had its grand opening.¹
  • 1 March 2016: the Utasutsu Satō fishery became a National Historic Site.¹⁷
  • 2023: wind plants No. 5 and No. 6 were completed.²
• Nuclear-waste survey.
  • 9 October 2020: the town applied for a NUMO literature survey. The survey began on 17 November 2020.³
  • October 2020: residents sought a referendum ordinance and collected 217 valid signatures. The town council took up the request in November 2020.²¹
  • 22 November 2024: NUMO handed its report to the mayor. The report named the whole town, plus the seabed out to about 15 km from the coast, as the candidate area for the next stage, the "preliminary survey" (概要調査).³²²
  • The minister cannot select the area if the Hokkaido governor or the mayor objects. In February 2024 Governor Suzuki Naomichi said that, as things stand, he would oppose moving to the next stage.²²
  • April 2025: public inspection of the report ended on 4 April, and NUMO closed the public-comment process on 18 April. NUMO's timeline shows no later step as of September 2026.³
• Recent.
  • 5 June 2025: the town declared itself a "Zero Carbon City".²³
  • 28 October 2025: Mayor Kataoka Haruo, in office since 2001, was re-elected with 1,087 votes to 600.²⁴⁵ Suttsu has held its mayoral elections on a Tuesday since the 2005 election, which is unusual in Japan.⁵

Suttsu lies in southwestern Hokkaido, on the Sea of Japan at the western edge of Shiribeshi, roughly halfway between Hakodate and Sapporo.¹¹ It sits where the Oshima Peninsula joins the rest of Hokkaido.²⁵

• Coast. The town's shoreline curves in a bow around Suttsu Bay (寿都湾). The town gives its length as 32 km; the 2018 heritage plan measures 28.9 km.¹¹⁰ Most of it is rocky reef. The main sandy stretch is Hamanaka beach, about 4 km long, at the mouth of the Shubuto River.¹⁰
• River and plains. The Shubuto River (朱太川) divides the town into the Suttsu side to the west and the Utasutsu side to the east.⁵ The only real flat land is the Yubetsu alluvial fan near the river mouth.¹¹
• Mountains. Tengu-yama (839.4 m) and Horobetsu-dake (892.3 m) rise to the east, and Horozuki-yama (503.5 m) to the west, all on the town boundary.¹¹
• Forest. Forest covers about 78% of the town, most of it natural.⁵¹⁰ A 2006 survey found the largest known mizunara oak in Hokkaido here, with a trunk girth of 689 cm. In 2007 a beech stand near Benkei Cape was confirmed as Japan's northernmost beech forest, about 1.5 km north of the previous record holder in Rankoshi.⁵
• Protected area. Benkei Cape belongs to the Kariba-Motta Prefectural Natural Park (狩場茂津多道立自然公園). The park was designated on 23 June 1972 and covers 22,647 ha across Suttsu, Shimamaki and Setana.²⁶

Climate. The warm Tsushima Current keeps Suttsu mild for its latitude.¹⁰ JMA 1991–2020 normals for the Suttsu station:²⁷

• Annual mean 8.9 °C (January −2.3 °C, August 21.2 °C)
• Precipitation 1,250.6 mm
• Snowfall 454 cm per season; mean deepest snow cover 73 cm
• Sunshine 1,393.5 hours, but only about 27 hours in January and 26 hours in December
• Prevailing wind from the south-southeast from April to October, and from the northwest from November to March

Wind. The dashi-kaze (だし風), "the wind that sends boats out", blows from the mountains out to sea from spring to autumn. The Kuromatsunai lowland narrows from Uchiura Bay on the Pacific side toward Suttsu Bay and funnels southerly winds through it. These winds often bring sea fog and a drizzle that locals call jiri (ジリ). In autumn and winter the strong wind swings round and blows in from the Sea of Japan; locals call it the tama-kaze (たま風).¹⁰

JMA station records:²⁸

• Highest daily maximum wind speed: 49.8 m/s from the SSE (15 April 1952). Japanese Wikipedia notes this is the highest such record at any JMA station in Hokkaido.⁵
• Strongest gust: 53.2 m/s (26 September 1954)
• Record high: 34.0 °C (20 August 1904)
• Record low: −15.7 °C (3 January 1912)
• Deepest snow: 189 cm (17 March 1945)
• Snowiest season: 667 cm (2006)
• Warmest year: 2025, with an annual mean of 10.6 °C

• Fishing. In 2025 the town's fishery cooperative landed about 2,416 t worth about ¥698 million. Finfish made up about 92% of the catch by weight.²
  • By weight: Atka mackerel (hokke) 665.6 t, herring 645.7 t, mackerel 236.2 t and yellowtail 192.5 t led the catch.
  • By value: sea cucumber led with 45.5 t worth ¥159.4 million, followed by salmon (¥99.4 million), hokke (¥82.2 million), yellowtail (¥54.2 million) and sea urchin (¥50.6 million).
  • Farmed catch: 39.2 t of scallops and 12.6 t of Kotobuki oysters. The catch of sand lance (いかなご), the fish behind shirasu, was 20.7 t.²
  • Hokke's share has fallen: it was about 70% of landings in 2015 and about 28% in 2025.¹⁵²
  • Herring, which disappeared after 1946, was again the second-largest catch by weight in 2025.¹⁰²
  • Since FY2010 the town has composted fish-processing waste with wood chips and fed the compost into the sea to regrow kelp beds. It reports kelp recovery and better sea urchins where this has been done.¹⁰ Suttsu Fishing Port is a Class 3 fishing port.¹¹
• Seafood processing. About 80% of the town's factories are seafood processors. In 2020 its 9 manufacturing establishments had 219 workers and shipped goods worth ¥3,573 million. Signature products are hokke izushi, salmon roe and cod roe.²
• Farming. Farming is small. In 2025 local farms produced 169.8 t of potatoes and 5.0 t of rice, and shipped 37 beef cattle worth ¥27.22 million.²
• Wind power.
  • The town-owned utility sold ¥594.75 million of electricity in FY2019 from about 25.1 GWh of output. The town calls this a valuable source of revenue.²⁹ The FY2026 budget expects ¥706.6 million in electricity sales.²
  • The 2024 energy vision lists 13 turbines totaling 20,560 kW. They are at the Onsen, Kotobuki-no-Miyako, Fūta and No. 5 and No. 6 plants, the last two added in 2023.¹³ The town's 2026 statistics count 12 turbines in operation.²
  • The fixed-price (FIT) contract for the five 1,990 kW Fūta turbines ends in FY2027.¹³
• Tourism. The town counted 170,659 visits in FY2025: Benkei Cape 79,779; Yubetsu no Yu 50,598; the roadside station 38,932; events 1,350.² Most visitors come on day trips in spring and summer.¹¹
• Public finance.
  • Hometown-tax donations (ふるさと納税) peaked at ¥2.016 billion from 164,131 gifts in 2023 and came to ¥1.312 billion in 2025.²⁵
  • The FY2026 general-account budget is ¥5.623 billion. Donations are expected to cover ¥1.0 billion of it (17.8%), and local allocation tax ¥1.854 billion (33.0%).²
• Population and revitalization.
  • The population fell from 4,114 in 2000 to 2,838 in 2020.² On 31 March 2026, 41.8% of residents were 65 or older.²
  • The town opened a publicly founded, privately run cram school (公設民営塾) in 2019 to help keep Suttsu High School open.² The high school had 66 students in 2025.²
  • The town clinic has 19 beds. Since April 2018 it has been run by the Hokkaido Centre for Family Medicine.²
  • Other efforts include the antenna restaurant Suttsu Uo Isshin (寿都魚一心) in Niseko, products from a new crop, "wind basil" (風のバジル), and a temple-stamp (goshuin) tour.²
  • The town's 2026–2030 plan aims to keep the population at 2,551 in 2030.¹¹

• Matsumae Kagura (松前神楽). This ritual dance began at Matsumae Castle. It was designated Hokkaido's first intangible cultural property in 1958 and a national Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property in March 2018. It is performed at shrines across southern Hokkaido and Shiribeshi, including at Suttsu's festival.¹⁷
• Folk songs and play. Local songs include the Isohama bon song (磯浜盆歌), Esashi Oiwake and a boat-rowing ferry song. Benkei Ondo and Isoya Ondo are also sung. The heritage plan also lists takara-biki, a traditional lottery game, among local pastimes.¹⁷
• Suttsu Shrine (壽都神社), Oshima-chō 127-2. The shrine was founded in 1627, and the town describes it as the oldest in Shiribeshi. It is a cherry-blossom spot and puts up racks of wind chimes in summer. Visitors come for its oyster-shaped fortune slip, the "Manpuku Shōrai Kaki-Shirasu Mikuji", for its goshuin stamps and for its flower-filled purification basins.⁴⁶
• Temples. The town has 14 temples and 9 shrines. Five temples line Teramachi-dōri (寺町通り). Eight temples and Suttsu Shrine take part in a goshuin tour, and an original Suttsu goshuin book is sold at the roadside station.⁴⁷
  • Ryūshō-ji (龍昌寺) in Utasutsu is the oldest mission in town; the shogunate authorised it in 1856.²⁰
  • Seikō-ji (西光寺) was designed by Itō Heizaemon (伊東平左衛門), the architect of Kyoto's Higashi Hongan-ji.²⁰
  • Kyōritsu-ji (教立寺) keeps a statue of King Enma and a painted scroll of hell. They are linked to bandits who once haunted the mountain road to Oshamambe.²⁰
• Shrines. Umi Shrine (海神社) in Notsuto holds a wooden statue by the travelling monk-sculptor Enkū.¹⁰²⁰ Utasutsu's Itsukushima Shrine keeps "Kazanagi-san" (風泙さん), a wind god who holds a sickle to cut down strong winds. Fishermen stuck ashore by the dashi-kaze long prayed to him.¹⁰
• Cultural Properties Exhibition Room (寿都町文化財展示室). It is on the first floor of the Withcom cultural center (Kaishin-chō 187-1). It shows Jōmon pottery from the Shubuto River, herring-fishing tools and dioramas. Admission is free and it is normally open 9:00–20:00.⁴⁸ It is closed from 28 September 2026 to 31 January 2027 for window repairs.⁴⁹
• Image songs. The enka star Kitajima Saburō recorded two songs about the town, "Kaze no Roman" (風のロマン) and "Benkei-misaki" (弁慶岬).⁵⁰ They were released in 1997.²

The mouth of the Shubuto River has Satsumon-period sites and Ainu graves.¹⁰ The Nakauta-zawa Chashi (ナカウタ沢チャシ), a hilltop enclosure of the type Ainu communities built, was excavated during work on National Route 229. The results were published in 1980.¹⁷

From the early 1600s, Suttsu, Otasutsu and Isoya were trading posts where Matsumae merchants traded with the Ainu. Records of Shakushain's War in 1669 mention the area.¹⁰ Most of the town's place names come from Ainu, including Suttsu, Utasutsu, Isoya, Yubetsu, Masutomari and Tarukishi (see Name origin).¹⁰

Ainu people also appear in the Benkei legend as the heritage plan tells it:¹⁷

• The strongman Benkei wrestled local Ainu to cheer up Yoshitsune. A sumo ring and a ring of posts were said to mark the spot.
• A man Benkei threw fell below the cliff, and his nosebleed stained a rock red. The rock is still called Akaiwa (赤岩).
• Before leaving for Cape Raiden, Benkei held a farewell feast with the Ainu on Futatsumori. He buried a gold sake flask and cups under a white bellflower and promised to return.

The sources consulted mention no Ainu cultural facility or active Ainu tradition group in the town.

None found. No sister or friendship city was found on the town website or in Japanese Wikipedia.¹⁵

• Honjō Kei (本庄敬): Suttsu-born manga artist (Sōta no Hōchō), designer of Fūta and a Suttsu hometown ambassador.¹²⁷²
• Itakura Itoe (板倉糸栄, née Namba 南波): Suttsu-born freelance announcer and TV weather presenter; a hometown ambassador.⁷²
• Usuda Yoshitomo (薄田美朝): 51st Superintendent-General of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police and a member of the House of Representatives.⁵
• Satō Eiemon (佐藤榮右衛門): former member of the House of Representatives, from the family said to descend from Satō Tsuginobu.⁵
• Wakasa Hakosu (若狭函寿): founder of Wakasaimo Honpo.⁵³⁴
• Shimomura Taizan (下村泰山): owner of Magic Spice, which Japanese Wikipedia calls the restaurant where soup curry began.⁵
• Fujinishiki Chiyokichi (藤錦千代吉): sumo wrestler who reached the top makuuchi division in 1948.⁵