Cultural Landscape of the Saru River Basin Formed by Ainu Tradition and Modern Settlement

Cultural Landscape of the Saru River Basin: Ainu Tradition and Settlement

The Cultural Landscape of the Saru River Basin Formed by Ainu Tradition and Modern Settlement (アイヌの伝統と近代開拓による沙流川流域の文化的景観) spreads along the Saru River in Biratori Town, Saru District, Hokkaido, and was selected as an Important Cultural Landscape in 2007.

According to the national council of cultural landscape areas, Biratori lies on the middle reaches of the Saru, a class-A river that rises near the highest peak of the Hidaka Mountains and flows into the Pacific. The Agency for Cultural Affairs gives the selected area as 40,917.5 hectares. The Biratori Town Nibutani Ainu Culture Museum notes that it was only the third Important Cultural Landscape selected in Japan.

The selected area was extended in 2016 and 2026.

Why It Was Selected

At selection, the Cultural Landscape of the Saru River Basin was judged exceptionally valuable because it retains elements of Ainu culture to the present while the land use of farming and forestry since the settlement era has been layered over them, creating a landscape of overlapping cultures.

The council notes that, through Hokkaido's modernisation from the Meiji era, the Saru basin remained a centre of Ainu language research and traditional crafts, leading to today's cultural transmission around Nibutani. At the same time, settlers from further south built up large-scale industries along the river.

The selection covers landscapes of mowing and grazing, timber and protective forest, water use, transport and settlement, combined into a typical or distinctive expression of the everyday life and livelihoods of the people.

What to Look For

The Nibutani Ainu Culture Museum has a group of reconstructed Ainu houses (cise) in its grounds, and for decades the Saru has hosted cipsanke, the launching ceremony for dugout canoes, centred on Nibutani.

Nearby are the Saru River History Museum (free), the Kayano Shigeru Nibutani Ainu Museum with its founder's collection, and the former house of N. G. Munro, a doctor who devoted himself to Ainu studies. Look also at the pastures and grazing woodland that record farming since settlement.

Visiting

The Cultural Landscape of the Saru River Basin is a lived-in landscape over a wide area, with no fees or set hours. The Biratori Town Nibutani Ainu Culture Museum, the natural starting point, opens from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.: daily from 16 April to 15 November, closed on Mondays from 16 November to 15 April, and closed from 31 December to 5 January. Telephone 01457-2-2892.

By car it is about 1 hour 50 minutes from Sapporo via the Hidaka-Tomikawa interchange of the Hidaka Expressway, or about 1 hour from New Chitose Airport. By public transport, take Donan buses via Tomakomai or Tomikawa to Nibutani; check timetables with the operators.