Photo Journal: Sasagawa Nagare, Niigata’s Remote Coastline

Clinging to the northwestern edge of Honshu, Route 345 threads its way north along the narrow coast between the Echigo Plain and the Sea of Japan, on the way to the three sacred mountains of Dewa. Passing the old castle town of Murakami, you come on to the stretch of coast called Sasagawa Nagare. Here, dense green mountains tumble down to meet the sea while stray pines cling to the jagged rocks that dot the shoreline.

The vibrant blue waters and white sands of the thin beaches lend this strip of coast a postcard prettiness, but it is the evidence of the sheer hardness of life in this beautiful place that makes Sasagawa Nagare so compelling. Isolated and crumbling villages cling to the narrow shore. The houses are bleached grey, eaves striped with lines of persimmon and wild salmon curing in the salt wind. The dwindling population, mostly elderly, gather thick clumps of dripping black seaweed. The iodine reek of their harvest mixes with the scent of woodsmoke in the wind. The vending machines have started to rust.

This area represents the quieter side of Japan, the last outpost of civilisation before you reach the dark and unknowable mountains of the deep north – where shamanism thrives, and Buddhism is regarded with suspicion as a recent import. Today, you might be able to reach Sasagawa Nagare from Tokyo in less than three hours, but this achingly beautiful stretch of shoreline retains the atmosphere of a place left – utterly, irrevocably – in the past.