Shinhidaka, Hokkaido

Thoroughbred mares graze behind white-rail fences along roads that run parallel to the Pacific coast, and the smell of salt mingles with paddock grass on mornings when the fog hasn't lifted yet. This is Shinhidaka, formed from the merger of Shin'idaka's Shizunai and Mitsuishi towns, and the dual identity of the place is still visible — in the signage, in the local products, in the way the landscape shifts between coastal kelp beds and mountain river valleys. The Hidaka mountain range rises to the northeast, and peaks like Kamui Ekuuchikaushi-yama define a horizon that most visitors to Hokkaido never see.

Along the coast,昆布 — specifically Hidaka Konbu, also called Mitsuishi Konbu — comes ashore at fishing harbors including Shizunai and Higashishizunai. The konbu shapes the local food economy in ways that go beyond drying racks: there is a konbu-based shochu, a konbu monaka wafer, and Kobu-kuro, a Wagyu breed raised on Hidaka kelp. Hoey pork from whey-fed pigs and Mitsuishi beef round out a food culture that is essentially a map of the land and sea around it. Mitsui-ishi Yokan, a sweet bean paste confection, has its own lineage in Mitsuishi.

The Nijukken Road cherry tree avenue, a long corridor of trees established in 1916, runs through the interior, and the Shizunai Sakura Matsuri draws the calendar into focus each spring. The Shinhidaka Town Ainu Folklore Museum holds, among other things, a Hokkaido wolf skull — a reminder that this landscape was once inhabited by things that no longer exist here. The Selection Sale in July brings thoroughbred buyers from outside the region, briefly making the town the center of something global, before the quiet returns to the paddocks and the konbu beds.