Teshio 天塩町

The town is named after the Teshio River, which reaches the sea inside the town.⁵

• Ainu origin: The town says the name comes from the Ainu word teshu (テシュ), meaning a yana (梁). A yana is a fish weir built across a river from stakes, wood or bamboo.¹¹¹³
• Competing forms: Wikipedia gives tes (テㇱ, "weir") as the root. One theory is tes-o-pet (テㇱオペッ), "river with many weirs." Others are tes-un-i (テㇱウンイ), "place where there are weirs," and tes-us-i (テㇱウㇱイ), "place with weirs attached."¹
• Not real weirs: The name probably refers to rock ledges that crossed the middle reaches like weirs. They were there until the channel was dredged for timber transport.¹
• Early spelling: "Teshiho" (テシホ) first appeared on a map of Ezo made by the Matsumae domain in 1700.¹⁴ The trading post was called Teshiho Basho.⁵

• About 3,000 years ago: People built pit dwellings near the river mouth.¹⁴ The Kawaguchi Site has 230 dwelling hollows along 1.5 km of dunes. They date from the Epi-Jōmon period to just after the Satsumon period, and a few belong to the Okhotsk culture.¹⁹
• Ainu kotan and harbor: A long sand spit acted as a natural breakwater, so the river mouth made a good harbor. Ainu built kotan (villages) here, and it became a trading hub.⁵
• Early Edo period (Keichō era): A trading post (運上屋) and guard house (番所) were set up for trade between the Teshio Ainu and the Wajin (Japanese).¹⁴ After Shakushain's War in 1669, Matsumae control over the Ainu tightened.⁵
• 1786: The Teshiho trading post came under the contract system (場所請負制). The contractor was a merchant from Kishū, and trade became more unequal.⁵
• 1804: The local manager of the Suhara-ya (栖原屋) merchant house built a small hall to Benzaiten, the origin of Teshio Itsukushima Shrine (天塩厳島神社).¹⁴
• 1855–1861: The shogunate took direct control of most of Ezo in 1855. Matsuura Takeshirō (松浦武四郎) surveyed the Teshio River in 1857. In 1861 an official of the Shōnai domain was posted to Teshio.⁵
• 1869–1880: Teshio District was created in 1869 as part of the new Teshio Province. The village was named in 1878. In 1880 a kochō office opened here, covering Teshio, Nakagawa and Kamikawa districts.⁵
• From the late 1880s, herring and salmon: Many seasonal fishermen (ヤン衆) came for the spring herring and autumn salmon runs.¹⁴
• Whaling: The area was the first in Hokkaido to carry out modern commercial whaling. Gray and humpback whales were once common off the coast.⁵
• From 1898, farm settlers: Organized groups of settlers arrived from Etchū (Toyama), Rishiri Island, Iwate, Yamagata and Miyagi.¹⁴
• 1899: A regular ship service between Otaru and Teshio, subsidized by the Hokkaido government, began. It ran until the railway arrived in 1935.¹⁴
• About 1902–1912, the "Teshio timber era": The town calls the late Meiji 30s and the Meiji 40s the "Teshio timber era." Timber floated and shipped down the river made Teshio a lumber hub, and timber overtook marine products as its top export. Firms such as Teshio Mokuzai and Hokkaido Mokuzai moved in.¹⁴ The role ended in the Taishō era, when the Soya Main Line took over from river transport.⁵
• Fires: Large fires in the town burned 169 houses in 1910, 239 in 1917 and more than 170 in 1928.¹⁴
• 1935–1936, the railway: The Teshio Line (later the Haboro Line) reached Teshio from Horonobe on 30 June 1935. It was extended to Enbetsu in 1936.⁵
• 1940: A 2 m tsunami from the Shakotan-oki earthquake washed away fishing huts across the river at Otonrui, killing 11 people.⁵
• Postwar: Herring catches collapsed in the mid-Shōwa era, and people left for the big cities.⁵ The population peaked at 10,019 in 1955.⁷ Dairy grew, and the town marked 10,000 dairy cows in 1972.¹⁴
• 1984: Sister-city ties with Homer, Alaska, began. A direct express bus to Sapporo started that December.⁵
• 30 March 1987: The JNR Haboro Line closed, and buses replaced it.⁵
• 1995: The Teshio gray whale fossil was found in August in the 男能富 area of the town.²⁰
• 2000–2003: Teshio Onsen Yūbae opened in 2000.⁵ The National Shijimi Symposium was held here in 2001.¹⁴ Michi-no-Eki Teshio opened in June 2003.⁵
• 2010: Landslides after heavy rain on 13–14 August cut the water supply to 1,457 households for four days.¹⁴
• 2012: The mascot Teshio Kamen was created.¹⁴
• 2020: The new Teshio Bridge (天塩大橋) on National Route 40 opened on 30 October.⁵
• 2021: Michi-no-Eki Teshio was among the first "disaster-prevention roadside stations" (防災道の駅) chosen by the national government in June 2021.²¹
• 2023: The first Teshio River Shijimi Festival was held.¹⁴
• 2025: On 17 August, 156.0 mm of rain fell in one day, the most since records began.²²¹⁴

• Location: Teshio is in northwestern Hokkaido, on the left bank of the lower Teshio River.⁵ It spans 44°45′47″–44°59′37″N and 141°42′51″–142°01′41″E.¹¹
• The river mouth: For its last 10 km or so, the Teshio River flows south along the coast behind a long sand spit, which belongs to Horonobe. It meets the sea near the town center.¹⁵ At high tide, salt water pushes as far as 22 km upstream. The river's basin covers 5,590 km².¹
• Settlements: Most people who are not dairy farmers live in two places. One is the town center at the river mouth. The other is Onobunai (雄信内, from Ainu Onupunai), on National Route 40.⁵
• Lakes and wetlands: Kagami-numa (鏡沼) is the center of a seaside park.¹⁷ Furuoi-numa (振老沼) is a crescent-shaped lake cut off by river works, and migrating birds gather there.¹⁷ The Sarobetsu Wetland, a Ramsar site, is just to the north.²³
• Forests: Private forests cover about 20% of the town.²⁴
• Wildlife: Flocks of swans and taiga bean geese (オオヒシクイ) pass through in spring, when itou spawn in red breeding colors. Salmon run from September. In winter, Steller's and white-tailed sea eagles with wingspans over 2 m can be seen.²
• Parks: No national or quasi-national park land in the town was found in the sources checked.
• Climate: Winters are harsh, with big swings in temperature. Like its neighbors, Teshio is a designated Special Heavy Snowfall Area (特別豪雪地帯), and winter lows below −20 °C are common.⁵ These are the 1991–2020 normals at the JMA Teshio station:²⁵
  • Year: mean 6.8 °C; precipitation 915.4 mm.
  • January: mean −5.4 °C; average daily low −9.9 °C; 219 cm of snowfall.
  • August: mean 19.5 °C; average daily high 23.6 °C.
  • Snow: monthly snowfall adds up to about 760 cm a season (calculated). Average peak snow depth is 82 cm, in February.
• Records: 33.8 °C on 27 July 2021 and −30.6 °C on 24 January 1985. The deepest snow was 120 cm on 26 January 2013. JMA marks the 33.8 °C and 120 cm values with "]", its sign for figures based on incomplete data. Temperature records start in October 1977, rainfall records in May 1976 and snow-depth records in October 1982.²²

The economy rests on fishing, dairy farming and forestry.⁵

• Dairy:
  • In fiscal 2018, 87 of the town's 108 farm households kept dairy cattle.³
  • The herd was 8,327 dairy cattle, including 4,921 cows that had calved. Each averaged 7,222 kg of milk a year, for 35,540 t in total. The target for fiscal 2030 is 45,000 t.³
  • There were also 5,585 beef cattle.³
  • At its peak, the town kept well over 10,000 dairy cows and produced about 50,000 t of milk a year.²⁶
  • Milk goes through the farm co-op to Snow Brand Megmilk's (雪印メグミルク) plant in Horonobe.⁵
  • A TMR (mixed-feed) center opened in 2018 and a large farming corporation in 2019.²⁶ The town's plan warns that about half of farms have no successor.³
• Fisheries:
  • In 2024, local fishers landed 938 t worth ¥631 million.¹⁵ The main catches were:
    • salmon: 411 t, ¥403 million
    • skate (かすべ): 108 t
    • herring (にしん): 77 t, ¥27 million
    • flounder (かれい): 67 t
    • octopus: 40 t, ¥35 million
    • shijimi: 33 t, ¥48 million
  • Salmon peaked at 1,337 t (¥1,007 million) in 2022, the highest in the 2015–2024 table. There were 25 fishing households in 2024.¹⁵
  • Autumn salmon are caught in set nets and shipped as salted aramaki.¹⁶
  • The town describes shijimi fishing in the Teshio River, its tributaries and Panke-numa, a lake in Horonobe.¹⁶ Panke-numa was once a major shijimi ground, with more than 500 t caught in 1985, but the catch there fell sharply in the 2000s and ended after 2014.²⁷ The town uses catch limits and sand-covering of the beds to protect the stock.¹⁶
• Forestry: Timber once earned more than fishing, in the "Teshio timber era" of about 1902–1912.¹⁴ Today most of the private forest is still young trees.²⁴
• Population: The population fell from 10,019 in 1955 to 2,950 in 2020.⁷ The preliminary 2025 Census shows 2,535, a drop of 14.1% in five years.⁸
• Revitalization:
  • The town takes furusato nozei donations through seven portal sites.²⁸
  • Visitors can also donate on the spot and receive e-coupons (旅先納税 e街ギフト).²⁸
  • In September 2026 it held a town-building symposium on high school–university partnership.⁹ It signed partnership agreements with Nayoro City University in 2019 and Reitaku University in 2024.¹⁴
  • In 2026 Fujimura Hiyori, a filmmaker and student at Nihon University College of Art, made a short film about the town, 天塩町に、ついて.²⁹
  • Visitor numbers for the town were not found.

• Teshio Itsukushima Shrine (天塩厳島神社): The town's guardian shrine stands by the Teshio River. It was founded in 1804 and enshrines Ichikishimahime-no-Mikoto.¹⁷ It moved to its present site in 1910, and Itsukushima Park is next to it.⁵
• Teshio River History Museum (天塩川歴史資料館): This red-brick building was the town hall, completed in 1951.⁵¹⁷ It reopened as a museum in June 1989 and holds more than 2,000 items.⁵¹⁷ Wikipedia says restored pottery and stone tools from the Kawaguchi Site are kept at the town museum.¹⁹
• Town historic sites: The town protects five sites. They are the trading-post site (運上屋跡), the Teshio relay station site (天塩駅逓跡), and three old ferry landings at Kisen (基線), Onobunai and Furuoi.⁵
• Matsuura Takeshirō statue: A statue of the explorer was unveiled at Kagami-numa in 1997.¹⁴⁵

• Trading at the river mouth: The Teshio river mouth was an Ainu kotan and a trading center long before the Wajin came.⁵ In the early Edo period, the Matsumae domain set up a trading post (運上屋) here.¹⁴ Under the contract system from 1786, trade grew more unequal for the Teshio Ainu.⁵
• Kawaguchi Site (川口遺跡): The dwellings on the dunes span the Epi-Jōmon and Satsumon periods. The Satsumon culture came before Ainu culture.¹⁹ The tourism association describes the site as running from the Jōmon to the Ainu period.¹⁷
• Shikarakande (シカラカンデ): This Ainu man swapped language lessons with the wasan mathematician 串原右仲, teaching him Ainu.⁵
• Place names: Ainu names survive in Teshio itself (tes, "weir"),¹ and in Onobunai (Onupunai).⁵ Katakana district names such as Sarakishi (サラキシ), where the onsen stands,⁴ also look Ainu in origin, but no source checked explains them (unverified).
• Today: No Ainu cultural center or living tradition in the town was found in the sources checked. The best places to learn about the local Ainu are the Kawaguchi Site and the history museum.

• Homer, Alaska, USA (ホーマー市): Sister city since April 1984.⁴⁷
  • Homer lies at about 60°N, 152°W, some 5,000 km northeast of Teshio.⁴⁷
  • The two towns have exchanged students and cultural and sports groups. They marked the 30th anniversary in 2014.⁴⁷
  • The town timeline notes a youth exchange with Homer in 2025.¹⁴
• Tomari, Sakhalin, Russia (トマリ市): A friendship exchange agreement was signed in July 1992.⁴⁷
  • Tomari is on Sakhalin's west coast, about 170 km north of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. It has a climate and vegetation similar to Teshio's.⁴⁷
  • Under Japanese rule it was the town of Tomarioru (泊居町).⁵
• Domestic: None found.

• Paul Maki (ポール牧): Comedian, from the Onobunai district.⁵
• 村上茂利: LDP member of the House of Representatives and former Administrative Vice-Minister of Labour.⁵
• 小林幸徳: Professor emeritus at Hokkaido University and former president of the National Institute of Technology, Tomakomai College.⁵
• 金由起子: Women's baseball player and coach.⁵