Gori was a Japanese student at Sitka’s Outer Coast College.  We worked together to produce a radio program on the Japanese nature photographer Michio Hoshino who was killed in a bear mauling and was beloved in Alaska.  I asked for her recommendations for different Japanese ports.  For Kushiro she recommended a trip to a northern National Park and a village of the Ainu, the indigenous people of Hokkaido.  I considered booking a train but had trouble navigating the rail website through Google Translate. That turned a good thing. (See why below.)  As second best she recommended the marshlands north of Kushiro, the habitat of the endangered red topped crane. She said there was a boardwalk through the marsh I could walk. (Although she preferred a canoe.)

We signed up for Holland America’s tour to take us there.  But when we arrived the guide said we could not walk the boardwalk. “Very Danger” I walked to the trailhead, looked at the barricade and longingly beyond it to the trail leading to the boardwalk.  Google translate told the story. 

Déjà vu. The trail was closed because of bear activity. Most of the summer one of my favorite boardwalk estuary trails in Sitka was closed for the same reason. Hokkaido seems obsessed with bears.  We found bear motifs everywhere, at a hamburger stand, in local carvings, on posters. 

When we had dinner that evening one of our tablemates said. “That was the worst tour I’ve ever been on.”  I wouldn’t say worst.  It gave me a great lede for this post.  And it was not entirely the fault of the tour operator.

We me\et for the tour at 9AM to clear immigration.  Immigration went slowly, connectivity problems.  We got through immigration at about 10:30. (We had priority, being on an HAL purchased tour. I would have missed the train had I been able to book it.) It took me a little longer to get through immigration than it should have because my fingerprints do not register well on a scanner. I’ve had this problem before.  I rubbed my fingers on my shirt and blew on them so the scanner could pick them up. 

Our first (and it turns out only) stop was at the marsh observatory and visitors’ center, where I had hoped to walk the trail. 

The guide told us we had 40 minutes.  No trail, so we went to the observation tower.  A little after the allotted time he counted passengers and was one short. The guy behind me sighed, “My wife.”  TWENTY MINUTES LATER She made her entrance to the bus.  We were now way behind schedule.  Japanese buses are built for smaller folk than I. I can’t stand without a bowed head and the leg room is not generous. I paid for those extra 20 minutes.

All Aboard, we took off toward three different lakes.  At the second lake a few of us spotted cranes, the bus pulled into the view spot where the bus that left the ship after us was parked.  Our bus just turned around and headed back without stopping.  Going past the first lake again the driver stopped to look at a deer in the water, as we picked up speed several of us noticed cranes.  We started calling out “Cranes please slow down.”  The tour guide kept talking about Japanese road signs.  “But there are cranes!”  We zoomed by at 30 miles an hour.  At the third lake, more cranes.  Now several angry birders are shouting “Cranes, please slow down, please stop, Craaaanes.” We zipped right by.  We saw cranes, fleetingly, with no chance to look with our binoculars and zoom lenses.  We got back to the ship a little more than an hour late.   

That was awkward timing.  Suzi and I went to the shuttle bus to go to the MOO fish market at Fisherman’s Wharf downtown. The dispatcher said there were long lines waiting to get back.  The last bus back was in an hour and 15 minutes, and it took 20 minutes to get there.  She was asking us, indirectly, not to get on the bus. We got on the bus.  When we arrived, there was a long line for the return shuttle.

But the market was worth it. 

We also checked out the fishing boats

and the “Egg” a glass domed garden.

We took a cab back to the ship rather than waiting online.  We had enough time before boarding to look at the vendors and food trucks on the pier and share a bubble waffle cone, which was not filled with ice cream, but whipped cream with caramel sauce on top.

Everyone back from downtown, the ship left on time.  As we pulled out the Kushiro tourist authority put on a farewell show on the pier.  It was strange. A woman (we assume) in a little girl costume and molded mask was bopping around singing Japanese pop music with the vendors waving scarves.   The ship sounded its horn.  We were off.