A view from the top: Wakkanai, Japan |
I made my decision to go to
Wakkanai with little more purpose one has when throwing darts at a globe and watching where they land.
I was using Google Maps to look at
Japan. For no real reason I wondered what was at the very most northern part of
the country. I zoomed in on Hokkaido, the largest and most northern of Japan’s
four main islands. I zoomed in on its peak. Tracing the road lines for signs of civilization, I found
the city at its most northern coast.
Wakkanai.
Through the internet I could see a
few imagines of the town, mostly bird’s eye view from above. A small collection
of colorful building against a great expanse of ocean. I learned that it was a
fishing village. I saw pictures of the Wakkanai Dome, a strange building with
Roman columns and an incomplete look to it.
The town derived its name from the Ainu word "Yam Wakka Nai" which
means "swamp of cold drinking water". When said aloud “wakkanai” sounds
like “I don’t understand” in Japanese ("wakaru" means "to understand"). This is the source of many puns. In addition, the kanji selected for the name (稚内) is also totally
unrelated to its meaning, with 稚 meaning an archaic
character for “youth” and 内 meaning “inside, within.” It seems that these characters were selected for their phonetic sound, rather than meaning.
The average annual temperature of Wakkanai is about 7 ℃ which is very, very cold.
Wakkanai was founded as a village
in 1900, then achieved “town” status in 1901. By 1949, its population had
increased and it became a city. However, in the last few decades there has been
an exodus of working-aged people from Wakkanai into larger cities in Hokkaido.
The population has been decreasing dramatically every year.
As of April 30, 2014, (the day
before I arrived), there are 36,670 people currently residing in Wakkanai.
From what I gathered on the
internet, it looked like there was nothing to do in Wakkanai.
It looked incredibly cold.
Isolated.
Desolate.
I fell in love.
I immediately began fantasizing
about my trip there. I would go alone, of course, because I wanted to
internalize the cold and the isolation of the town. Traveling with a companion
would have been distracting. If there was nothing to do I would stay in the
hotel and write. I would walk to the Dome. I would gaze out at the cold
sea.
I wanted to be able to say that I
visited the most northern city in Japan and that I did it alone like a heroine
in a sad love song.
Although I had fantasizes of
visiting in the winter, when the ground would be covered with snow, I
ultimately decided that it would have been very impractical. Not only did I
have a hard time getting out of my own village in the winter (due to road
closures) but there was a high chance that flights would be delayed, and that
many things would not be open during that season. I settled on early May,
during Japan’s golden week, when most of the country if off for a week of
back-to-back national holidays.
I did very little research before
planning my trip, not that there was much research to do. Very little
information was available in English, and nearly all of it told me not to go to
Wakkanai. Blogs of my fellow English-speaking travelers before me were hardly
flattering to Wakkanai. From their accounted, it seemed like a boring and disappointing
place.
So I started searching in Japanese, and came across
this person’s account.
Thanks to the thorough blogging of my predecessor, I
created a detailed itinerary and budget for the trip. It would not be cheap.
Train tickets form Sapporo station are over $100 USD one-way, and the ride is 5
hours. I also splurged on the Dormy Inn, one of the nicest hotels in the city.I gave myself a day and a half. I would arrive Wednesday afternoon by train, and depart
Friday morning.
Tickets bought, hotel booked, I was ready for an
adventure.
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