To a Place You Can Feel the Time of Yururi

Endangered seabirds and wildflowers live in secret on the cliffs and marshes, marine animals play on the reefs as they wade through the northern sea, and unrestrained horses run across the grasslands…. Yururi Island is a unique place in the world where the balance is maintained by exquisite nature. To prevent disturbing that balance, human access to the island is restricted. That is why Yururi Island is like an illusion. You can see it, but you can’t go into it.

But at the same time, the opportunity to feel Yururi Island is available to everyone. The distance between Yururi Island and the opposite shore is very narrow. In the Ochiishi area of the Nemuro Peninsula across from the island, there are several places where you can be enveloped in the same wind and fog as in the island, and where you can think about the island’s history and look at its present. Here we will guide you around such Ochiishi. A place where you can feel the air of a distant yet close island. It’s also a place you won’t find anywhere else.

 ・Cape Ochiishi

Cape Ochiishi juts outward into the Pacific Ocean at the base of the Nemuro Peninsula. There are many memories of its history in this place, which can be said to be the beginning of the peninsula. For example, the remains of the Ochiishi Wireless Telegraph Station. The telegraph station at Ochiishi was built in the early 20th century for radio communication with ships sailing in the vicinity, and was moved to its present location in 1923. In 1929, the station received radio transmissions from the “Graf Zeppelin,” the largest airship in the world at the time. In 1931, Mr. and Mrs. Lindbergh flew to Nemuro, relying on the radio signals from this station. Ochiishi was indeed a place that communicated with the history of the world. In other words, the window of modern Japan to the world was created in the corner of this empty cape. Today, the concrete building of the former radio station, with its unique poetic atmosphere, is quietly huddled in the grassland, holding the memory of such historical communication (you cannot enter the building now).

After passing the remains of the radio station, you will see a lighthouse near the tip of the cape on the footpath named Cape Ochiishi Path. This beautiful lighthouse was selected as one of the “50 Best Lighthouses in Japan” (established by the Japan Coast Guard in 1998). The red and white body of the lighthouse, which shines against the green of the surrounding grasslands, is filled with a mysterious nostalgia. Since it stands on a cape with dense sea fog, it used to have a foghorn signal until 2010. Now, the sound remains only in the memories of those who have heard it…. In addition, at Cape Ochiishi, you can see a flower only seen here in Japan. It is the rhododendron parvifolium. The rhododendron parvifolium is a relic plant species that narrowed its distribution area as the ice age passed and was left behind in the alpine and cold zones. The southern limit of its distribution outside of Cape Ochiishi is around 50 degrees north latitude in Sakhalin. Such a flower with the memory of the earth blooms in the high-rise marshland of Cape Ochiishi at 43 degrees north latitude. It may be a small but precious miracle.

・Water Area Around Yururi Island

Yururi Island is located off the southern coast of Nemuro Peninsula. The sea around the island is a “Sea of Treasure” with a wealth of seafood. The kelp is a symbol of this area. The village on the other side of Yururi Island is called Kombumori, which comes from the Ainu words “kompu” and “moy.” In addition to Kombumori, two other fishing ports are managed by the Ochiishi Fishery Cooperative, Ochiishi port and Hamamatsu port. These three ports are busy all year round with the landing of salmon, octopuses, sea urchins, sauries and crabs. Matsuura Takeshiro, in his book “Three Voyages of the Ezo,” describes Yururi Island as “a shallow area with many reefs,” making it a dangerous place to sail. However, the fact that the topography of the sea is so diverse attracts a wide variety of marine life around the island, and probably contributes to the formation of the sea of treasures. Yururi Island has been providing the people living in the surrounding coastal areas with many gifts from the sea until today.