First Taste of Snow Country

Everyone said it wouldn't stick. And yet, a (very clear and sunny) day later, we are planning a rescue mission for the veggies - still covered with a few centimeters of snow. The forecast calls for more tonight as well, though not as much as the 20cm from two nights ago. According to the paper, yesterday's record was 32cm in the nearby Nozawa Onsen Village.

Today we had some errands to run in town, so drove the pug toward Nagano city. It gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling to see how quickly we went from complete white (here) to bare fields (only a few kilometers south). Some people may be a bit pessimistic about our ability to enjoy life in such a harsh region, but the truth is that it is no longer all that harsh. Yes, the snow falls, and yes, we have to shovel it into our pond to make room for the next dump (see photo above), but compared to just a few decades ago, before roads were plowed and people had to get up early every day to stop a path with snowshoes, life here does not seem to be much harsher than life in Tokyo.

That said, we do live in a region of Japan called the gousetsuchitai (heavy snow region), an official name for the more romantic sounding "snow country". Being designated as a gousetsuchitai means that the area receives special subsidies and grants to alleviate some of the hardships - such as grants for snow removal. I did not know until recently that over 50% of Japan is actually an official gousetsuchitai. We, however, live in a tokubetsugousetsuchitai (especially heavy snow region). Of Japan's 47 prefectures, 24 have some portion with the heavy snow region designation. 10 prefectures fall entirely within that designation. Niigata Prefecture is one of those, and Sakae Mura is right on the border of Nigata - in fact, Sakae often considers itself a part of Niigata in spirit. The map (via Wikipedia) below which prefectures are all (red) or partially (yellow) in the heavy snow region category. The other photos shows the actual boundaries of gousetsuchitai and tokubetsugousetsuchitai is from the Japan Ministry of Land Infrastructure, and Transport

Today we went to buy some snow tires for the pug. Of course, all the main roads were plowed (the length of road plowed in Japan each year is 80,000km - two times the diameter of the earth), and any road that does not get plowed will need more than a few snow-tires to drive on. Still, Tomoe has little experience with snow-driving, and I have a lot of experience getting into accidents in snow and ice. We think that investing in snow tires might be worth it.