Tsurui

It’s located in the eastern Hokkaido and about 40km by car from Kushiro Airport. There is Tsurui-mura between Lake Akan and the vast Kushiro Marsh. A pastoral scenery of dairy farming as the key industry spreads in a small village with about 2,500 population and the tancho cranes of special national treasure coexist with people as the village's name suggests. During the winter season, many tancho cranes lovers with a camera in hand come from home and overseas.

The key industry that supports the village is dairy farming. It is one of the best dairy farming villages in the Hokkaido, the cheese “Tsurui” made from high-quality milk is obsessed with success in winning 4th consecutive tournaments at domestic prestigious “All Japan Natural Cheese Contest” and its taste is guaranteed. The food processing experience facility “Rakurakukan” in the village is a popular facility provide an experience of rare Gouda cheese making.
They joined the union of “the most beautiful village in Japan” in 2008. The regional resources are the Kushiro Shitsugen (Marshland) National Park and the Tancho cranes of a special national treasure. The Kushiro Shitsugen was once considered a “barren land”. Although the reclaiming scheme was raised in the Showa era during the high growth period, since most of it remained unspoiled owing to the movement of environmental conservation, it turned out to the land of “paradise” that save the endangered tancho cranes.
The tancho cranes continue to fascinate the viewer's heart. Its Japanese name “Tancho” comes from “Tan” means the red and “Cho” means head and its colorful beauty such as the pure white body, the black neck and the wing, and the red head top, is also attractive. Although it is also used as a motif of the former 1,000 yen bill and Japanese painting, and is old birds familiar to the Japanese as there is a folk tale of “The Grateful Crane”, there is a history that they have been coexistent and live together with people as “companion” rather than “bird” in Tsurui-mura.
Incidentally, it has been called “Sarulun (Marshland) Kamui (God)” = “God of marshland” from Ainu who are indigenous people in Hokkaido.

Interviewed in January, 2018