Cranes and More

Our last port in Japan was Kushiro in the Hokkaido Prefecture. We stopped there on June 25 (Day 163). What a great place for me to say goodbye to a country I thoroughly enjoyed.

I took this picture of a sign, which touts the high points of Kushiro. It is a rural area, struggling with loss of population as young adults choose to live in other areas of Japan.

In most ports we visited, there are multiple excursion choices. In Kushiro, there were three: Kurshiro Wetland & Crane Reserve; Crane Reserve & Kushiro City Museum; and Kurshiro Wetland & City Museum.

I chose Crane Reserve and Kushiro City Museum.

There are only about 1,900 Japanese Cranes in the world, and the Kushiro Crane Reserve was set up to protect them. In the early 1920s, the Japanese Crane population was thought to be extinct, but more than ten were discovered in the Kushiro Marsh. Because of the focus on protection, the numbers have grown since. Efforts to protect the cranes extend outside the Crane Reserve.

The Kushiro City Museum was a little gem. There was the usual natural history. The best part, however, was on the third floor, where the exhibits focus on the indigenous people of northern Japan, the Ainu. From the Museum pamphlet:

Ainu are the indigenous people of northern Japan. Their culture is rooted in unique customs, language, and beliefs, including a spiritual reverence for the natural world. They lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle and traded with surrounding communities on Honshu to the south and the island of Sakhalin and the Eurasian continent to the north. From around 300 BCE, the culture in Hokkaido developed separately from that of the rest of the Japanese archipelago…..The history and beliefs of Ainu have been passed down through oral traditions and stories such as heroic epics (sakorpe). Visitors to the museum can watch videos with a selection of these stories told in the Ainu language.

The Museum building was also a pleasure to see.

Mozuna Kiko designed it using the unfolding wings of a crane as inspiration. This building stays in my mind as a fitting way to remember Japan.