Niseko

The Niseko valley was Ainu country, and its names are Ainu: Niseko Annupuri is the mountain of the Nisekoanbetsu River, whose own name means "river toward the cliff", and the rivers and passes around it carry similar names. Japanese settlers arrived after the Meiji government opened Hokkaido in the late 19th century, clearing forest for potatoes, buckwheat, dairy and rice on the volcanic soil around the mountain. Kutchan grew as the market town and railway stop for that farming country, and the hot springs in the hills above were used long before any lift was built.

Skiing came early. The Austrian officer Theodor von Lerch, who introduced alpine ski technique to Japan in 1911, skied Mount Yōtei the following year and is remembered by a statue in Kutchan. The first lifts at what became Grand Hirafu opened in 1961, and lodges and lifts spread across four separate ski fields on the mountain's flanks. Through those decades this was a domestic resort, busy at weekends with skiers from Sapporo.

The change came around 2000, when Australian visitors began arriving in numbers for the powder snow, followed by buyers from Hong Kong, Singapore and elsewhere. Foreign investment built apartment blocks, chalets and restaurants at Hirafu, land and property values in Kutchan rose sharply, and the four ski areas came to be sold as a single linked mountain under one all-mountain pass, extended to cover every lift by 1998. The area now has a large foreign population by the standards of rural Japan, seasonal workers included, and the balance between construction, farmland, water and the character of the towns is the central local argument.

Niseko is two places at once. In winter the base villages are unusually international for Japan: English is heard everywhere, many of the bars and restaurants are foreign-owned or staffed by working-holiday seasonal workers from Australia and Asia, and the ordinary rhythms of a Japanese small town are largely invisible. In the towns below, and for eight months of the year, it is rural Hokkaido — farming families, a small-town festival calendar and a shrinking and ageing population like everywhere else in the region.

The powder is the local religion. Snow quality is discussed the way weather is elsewhere, resorts publish overnight accumulation figures each morning, and the shift from groomed runs to trees and backcountry gates is the shape of the skiing day. With it has come a strong safety culture, since the mountain's avalanche risk is real and the rules on closed gates are enforced.

Hot springs are the other constant. Bathing outdoors in mineral water while snow falls is the standard end to a day here, and the etiquette — wash first, no swimwear, quiet — is observed by locals and expected of visitors. Mount Yōtei functions as the area's emblem, on labels, signs and photographs, while Kutchan celebrates the crop that made its name with a skiing potato for a mascot and fills its town centre with a jazz festival each July.

About 20,000 people live in the two towns that share the mountain — Kutchan, the larger, and Niseko town — and the population swells in winter with seasonal workers and visitors, sometimes outnumbering residents. It is one of the few parts of rural Japan where the population has not simply fallen, and one of the few with a large and permanent foreign community, including families whose children attend local schools.

The economy has two halves. Farming still works the valley floor: potatoes, which Kutchan is known for, along with rice, buckwheat, dairy, melons and sweetcorn. Tourism supplies the rest, through hotels, restaurants, ski schools, property management, construction and the transfers that bring people from the airport. Wages and prices are higher than in comparable Hokkaido towns, and housing for local workers is genuinely scarce.

The year is lopsided. From December to March the villages run at full speed, with lifts opening at first light and restaurants booked out; in late spring and November many businesses simply close. Snow clearing shapes winter mornings, and the summer is short and intensely worked. The issues debated locally are the pace of building, water and sewerage capacity, the loss of farmland, labour shortages, and how far a village built for skiers can also remain a Japanese town.

Eating in Niseko splits along the same line as everything else. In the winter villages there are French, Italian, Australian and pan-Asian restaurants alongside izakaya, ramen counters and sushi, with prices to match the season, and a bar scene unlike anything else in rural Hokkaido. Below the slopes, Kutchan and Niseko town keep ordinary Japanese restaurants — ramen, curry, family restaurants, bakeries — that serve residents all year.

The genuine local speciality is soba. Buckwheat grows well in the volcanic soil around Mount Yōtei, and the new-crop noodles of autumn are a point of pride, served cold on bamboo with dipping sauce or hot in broth. Potatoes are the other emblem: Kutchan's are famous across Japan, eaten steamed with butter, in croquettes, and in the stews and hotpots that fill winter menus.

The rest is Hokkaido's larder applied to a cold valley. Jingisukan, lamb or mutton grilled on a domed iron pan; nabe hotpots of vegetables, pork or salmon; dairy as milk, cheese, butter and soft serve; melons and sweetcorn in late summer; and seafood trucked in from the coast an hour away — crab, scallops and sea urchin. Spring water from the volcano is bottled and sold, and sake, whisky from Yoichi and Sapporo beer are the usual drinks after a day on the snow.