Hombetsu, Hokkaido

Sunflower fields spread across the rolling hills east of the Toshibe River, and in summer a maze is cut through them — not for tourists exactly, but because someone thought it would be good to have one. That impulse, practical and quietly playful, runs through Honbetsu. The town sits at a junction where the roads connecting Obihiro and Kitami cross, and the expressway branches here toward Kushiro, making it a place that freight and movement pass through without quite stopping.

But the town itself stops. Corn, wheat, beets, beans — the fields around Honbetsu are worked in rotation, and the smell of the soil in the low plain along the river is the smell of the place. The old station building has been repurposed as Michi-no-Eki Stella Honbetsu, where local produce lines the shelves. At Mameyatokachi Okajodo Honke, the sweets made from local beans carry the same logic as the agriculture: direct, without ornament.

Beneath this agricultural present, older layers persist. The town's name derives from the Ainu language, and traditions of Ainu cultural transmission continue here. The legend of Minamoto no Yoshitsune's journey north is associated with the park bearing his name, and the historical museum near the former Senbiri Station holds materials connected to Baron Nishi. The Aka-Fudo-in Saitō Goma fire ritual and the Tsutsujimatsuri at Honbetsu-sankei mark the year in ways that belong to this specific ground rather than to any regional calendar.