Akanko

Friday morning got up at 6am to get the bus to the resort town of Akan Lake(Akanko), a 2 hour bus ride from Kushiro. The town is home to one of the largest Ainu settlememts in Japan. The Ainu are the indigenous people of Northern Japan. Their territory once stretched north to Sakhalin and the Kuril islands, (now held by Russia), and South to parts of Northern Honshu. During the Japanese Meji Restoration, the island of Ezo which was the main territory of the Ainu was officially declared the Northern Island of Japan, and its name changed to Hokkaido. Japanese policy was geared towards assimilating the Ainu into the Japanese race, with their language being outlawed and incentives offered to native Japanese to settle in Hokkaido. Until fairly recently, it was common practise for Ainu people to hide their ethnicity for fear of discrimination, with some parents even hiding their ethnicity from their children. Recently their has been a cultural rennaisance among the Ainu people and government policy is now geared towards the promotion of Ainu culture. In Akan there is an Ainu village where crafts are sold, and a theatre with nightly dance performances.

Akan lake is also home to the marimo..a green algae which forms into furry balls, inhabiting the lake bed. Lake Akan is one of the only places in the world where marimo colonies exist (the others are Iceland and Esonia). Alongside Ainu arts and crafts are sold a wide variety of marimo memorabilia, from small, cultivated marimo in glass jars to t-shirts, keyrings, cuddly toys, Marimo Hello Kitty, and a whole host of other tat

A walking trail. leads into the forest and down via the lake front, leading to the bokke. This is a pool of hot, bubbling sulpher mud, and a local phenomenon. There is also a great view of one of the park's mountains, O-Akan dake from a pier extending out into the lake.

2km out of town is a small ski resort. In summer you can hike up the slope to the top of the chair lift for a view over the lake. There is also a trail winding through the forest up there leading out to more bokke. Walking through these mountain trails listening to the deep rumble of the earth emanating from the bokke, mixing with birdsong, was pretty magical. The leaves were every shade from deep green through to to deep deep red via lime, gold and rust. One more than one occasion I was stopped in my tracks by the sight of vivid red in a sea of green. The bokke here were even more magical, pools of grey, angry mud, spewing fetid, stinking sulpher, contrasted powerfully with the vivid beauty of the forest surrounding.