Teshio River

The is a river in Hokkaidō, Japan. At , it is the second-longest river on the island (after the Ishikari) and the fourth-longest in the country (after the Shinano, Tone, and Ishikari). A Class A river, the Teshio is the northernmost major river in Japan, and has been designated Hokkaidō Heritage. Matsuura Takeshirō is said to have come up with the name "Hokkaidō" during his exploration of the river's interior.

Name

The name of the river derives from the Ainu , meaning "river full of fishing weirs", perhaps because of rocks dotted across the river in such a shape. Alternatively, there is a locale in Bifuka that has been designated a municipal Historic Site as the on the basis that it was while staying here, during his exploration to the source of the river, on the seventh day of the sixth month of Ansei 4 (1857), there being a fishing weir at the spot, that recorded the river's name. Due to works on the river in recent years the rocks in its middle course that perhaps inspired the name themselves largely no longer exist.

Geography

The river's source is at Mount Teshio (), highest of the Kitami Mountains. Flowing down through the mountain valleys from its origins in Shibetsu, it is fed by tributaries (of which it has some 160) including the , then crosses the mountain plains, passing next through the more-constricted topography of Otoineppu before entering the Teshio Plain, where it meanders until flowing into the Sea of Japan at Teshio. The lower are, unusually, unbroken by dams and weirs and can be navigated uninterrupted.

In the river basin, which has an area of , there are twelve municipalities:
* Kamikawa Subprefecture： Bifuka, Kenbuchi, Nakagawa, Nayoro, Otoineppu, Shibetsu, Shimokawa, Wassamu
* Rumoi Subprefecture： Teshio
* Sōya Subprefecture： Horonobe, Toyotomi, Wakkanai
As of the 2010 census, some 122,000 people lived in the basin.

History

It is believed the first humans arrived in the Teshio River system approximately fifteen thousand years ago. At the in Teshio, where the river enters the Sea of Japan, remains of some two hundred and thirty pit dwellings have been discovered, with deposits of the Zoku-Jōmon period as well as of the Satsumon and Okhotsk cultures. Opening of the , similarly at the mouth of the river, in Tenmei 6 (1786) marked the advent of the Wajin and their trade with the Ainu of the interior. The first survey of the river was conducted by three men under , retainer of the Matsumae Domain, in Kansei 9 (1797), from its lower stretches as far as Otoineppu. In Ansei 4 (1857), Matsuura Takeshirō spent twenty-four days exploring the Teshio River, starting from its mouth; he subsequently wrote up his account of the river and those who lived along it in his . It was from the tales he heard from an Ainu elder living in the area of Otoineppu that Matsuura conceived of the name "Hokkaidō".

Following the establishment of the in Meiji 2 (1869), settler-farmers began to arrive. After major floods in 1898, a need was identified for flood mitigation measures all over the island. After detailed surveying of the river between 1906 and 1908, and further flooding, a flood control plan for the Teshio River was first drafted in Taishō 8 (1919). There ensued a programme of bank reinforcement, embankment construction, and channel switching. After flooding continued to adversely affect the local farmers' potatoes, the Shōwa era saw further channel switching and the excavation of new waterways. A typhoon in 1981 and the heaviest rainfall since the war saw an area of inundated, with damage to 546 houses, while the typhoons of 2016 left 72 homes flooded.

The river's history is documented at the in Teshio.

Economy

In the upstream areas of Shibetsu and Shimokawa, the lumber industry exploits the abundant forests of the interior. The Nayoro basin between Nayoro and Bifuka marks the northern limit of rice cultivation. Downstream, on the Teshio Plain, there is dairy farming, while near the river mouth there is salmon and trout fishing and also the prefecture's most intensive harvesting of ''shijimi'' clams. Water sports include canoeing—there is an annual race .

Ecology

The mountainous area upstream extends to the Daisetsuzan National Park, while Teshiodake Prefectural Natural Park has many alpine plants. Nearer the river mouth is Rishiri-Rebun-Sarobetsu National Park, with more than a hundred species of flora including hamanasu, the Siberian lily, Japanese irises, and . Fauna of the river system include the Tōkyō lesser pigmy shrew, migratory White-tailed eagle (a Natural Monument), Steller's sea eagle (Natural Monument), Taiga bean goose (Natural Monument), and Sakhalin taimen. The and marshes are an important resting place for migratory waterfowl, and the Sarobetsu wetlands have been designated a Ramsar Site