Hokkaido Anderson Tim by Anderson, Tim; instant download after payment.

‘frontier’. This is the language used by Hokkaido’s own tourism

organisation, a slogan proudly displayed above photos of the island’s

undeniably beautiful scenery: ‘Japan’s Northern Frontier’. Hokkaido was

officially claimed by the imperial Japanese government in 1869, following

the Meiji Restoration the previous year. The annexation invites

comparisons between Hokkaido and the American West, and the American

idea of ‘manifest destiny’. It was considered a logical and obvious step,

taken to consolidate power, protect the country against Russia, and

complete the Japanese mainland we all recognise today. I must say that

historical maps of Japan without Hokkaido look funny to me – like the

country is missing its head.

I, too, have often thought of Hokkaido as a frontier. But I am mindful of

historian Brett L. Walker’s explanation of why this is problematic. In The

Conquest of Ainu Lands, he writes:

‘… as a conceptual tool, the notion of the frontier peripheralizes Ezo

[Hokkaido’s pre-Meiji name] … trade, cultural interaction, economic

growth, and state expansion in Ezo are often cast as part of the

pageantry of Japanese national progress, rather than as the subjugation

of the Ainu homeland.’1

Positioning Hokkaido as a frontier is to portray the island as historically

empty, land that was simply ‘discovered’ by the imperial government. The

reality is that Hokkaido was already home to the Ainu and other

indigenous groups for centuries. Their land was taken, and they were

forced to assimilate into Japanese society under a series of harsh laws that

banned Ainu cultural practices.

When I was a student, I more or less bought into the mainstream

narrative of the imperial ‘development’ (kaitaku) of Hokkaido. On a

research trip in 2005, this was indelibly illustrated to me at the Sapporo

Beer Museum, of all places: essentially a glorified brewery tour, which

merrily tells the story of modern Hokkaido in