Hokkaido Day 11
The sound of the wind across the lake was haunting
Day 11 in Hokkaido is coming to a close.
Today I spent time in both Sapporo and at lake Shikotsu in the Chitose area. Lake Shikotsu is currently hosting its winter festival, so I was able to attend and see how it feels when compared to festivals I have recently attended. This festival is sort of comparable to the Sounkyo festival for obvious reasons - it includes these massive structures formed around birch trees made of ice that is lit up. This was the case back at Sounkyo- this one had many, many more people though.
One of the interesting structural things that I noticed while going through the event at lake Shikotsu is that much of the ice had a ‘scaly’ textured pattern that seemed to be because of fishnet that “contained” much of the ice, and was likely sprayed down to hide it in most places (except few spots where it melted). This reminds me of the Otofuke festival, SAIRINKA, where the light displays were made out of agricultural canvas that was not being used due to the end of the growing season - given that the area seemed to have quite active fishing, I wonder if there’re any interesting parallels with this kind of specific influence of local industry on the shape of some of these festivals.
It really is amazing what people manage to do in such harsh climates. I’m so glad to be able to see it.
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