Noboru and Kasagi: Hokkaido's most wanted surfers. Photo: Kasagi Hajime
Naminori, or wave riding, is thought to have arrived in Japan during the cultural shockwaves following the Second World War, brought in by American service men stationed outside Tokyo. While a handful of locals were surfing the beaches of Shonan and Chiba by the early ‘60s, the first seeds really sprouted in 1963 when a California-born surfboard shaper called Tak Kawahara visited the region, teaching locals the fundamentals of surfing and board shaping. By 1965 the Nippon Surfing Association had been founded and by the end of the sixties Japanese surfers were competing in prestigious events in Hawaii such as the Makaha International Championships and the World Contest at Bells Beach in Australia. Japan was in the grip of a full-blown surf boom by the late seventies, fuelled by world tour contests bringing star packed line-ups to its shores. By the dawn of the new millennium, it was estimated that Japan was home to three quarters of a million surfers, yet today on Hokkaido, numbers are still relatively low. Those that do take to the waters here, are hardy souls indeed.
A group stands huddled together in the subzero temperatures, the nearby car sits empty, engine running to keep the heater turning over. Looking out over the sea defenses, one of the group points as the dark ocean rises and throws forward into an a-frame peak, walling waves spinning away to the left and right. The land terminates dramatically in vertical, brooding cliffs, the coastline winding its way to the north; boulder sea defenses line undulating bays, the dark, rounded stones capped by crisp white snow. The narrow strip of land between cliff and sea is utilized to its maximum potential – a thin ribbon of homes, a car park, warehouses, shops, the coastal road, tunnels, railway line, harbor and a surf check vantage point.
Today is a good day. Although the air temperature has dipped to minus ten, there is a head-high clean swell and the local crew is on it. Looking at a map the Japan Sea seems too small to be of much use, but during the winter months the low pressure systems that swing through to the north or south can deliver excellent surf – the only drawback is that the winter means cold. Not like a chilly day in Santa Cruz kind of cold, but cold like a chilly day in Siberia. The line-ups here are scattered but well known to the locals who, despite the low numbers, closely guard their secret locations. The complex geology of the region and the man-made groynes do not make life easy, but there are reefs, points and rivermouths there for those in the know. On the Pacific Seaboard life is somewhat easier. The warm summer just happens to coincide with Typhoon Season, when powerful swirling depressions wreak havoc across the region. One of the side effects of these weather patterns is that they provide Japan with a regular supply of epic surf. Sometimes these typhoon swells can light up beaches and points for days on end, on a weekly basis. For Hokkaido that means wave riding nirvana, while in the eternal grand scheme, for somewhere else along the Pacific fringe, it means roofs ripped from houses, devastation. During the winter, the eastern seaboard still has surf – after all that’s a big ocean out there, but this coast endures the same freezing conditions as the rest of the island. There are huge stretches where mythical waves break, however these are all but inaccessible to the outsider. Surfers on Hokkaido know they have it good, they just don’t want others to know quite how good.
Quiet Revolution is an extract from the Hokkaido chapter of Chris Nelson’s recently released Cold Water Souls: In Search of Surfing’s Cold Water Pioneers. If you’re interested, click here to order a copy.
