100 Years of Japanese Skiing

A trip to Japan is something many of us, skiers and boarders alike, want to have at least once in our lives. Over here, Japan can be seen as something of a powder panacea, or badge of honour for those who’ve been there and tasted the monstrously deep powder, and distant winter sport culture. Japan’s reputation as a prime target for passionate skiers is well established, and no doubt a great many of you are targeting a visit one day; some of you may even have made the sojourn already.

With that reputation in mind, it could pass you by that the history of winter sport in Europe and North America is well known: from alpine routes in Switzerland, to the to the world. The entry of skiing into Japan is less well known, but clearly it made its way over there a while ago, considering the country has hosted two rounds of the Winter Olympics.

It seems skiing first came to Japan at the very beginning of the twentieth century, but this wasn’t a sudden realisation of the fun which could be had from strapping some wood to your feet and seeing how far you could slide without falling over. Japanese skiing at this time was a working necessity. You may know of certain areas’ reputation for yards deep powder; now imagine having to live everyday life in that weather before modern technology and luxuries. Skiing was a rugged relief from the harshness of winter.

By the 1930s however, and Alpine born men and women were heading off to spread the word of sport and recreation. Learning to ski downhill for fun was coming into fashion, and Japan was awakening to a favourite winter pastime of Westerners. They loved it. Well, some of them loved it, for a while, before the 1940s and a certain global conflict that needn’t be explained. Post-war, even more Japanese were finding fun in the mountains, and learning to ski was becoming ever more fashionable, culminating first in an Olympic medal in alpine skiing from Cortina, and then with a Winter Olympics of their own, in 1972.

From this point onwards, skiing grew exponentially, and in the 1980s, it had become the chosen activity of anyone wanting to seem trendy or show off their skill. Skiing grew so popular so quickly that resorts and community ski areas couldn’t expand quickly enough to meet the sport’s growth. Eventually the well-known resorts became places in which to be seen more than centres of sport and thrills, with lift queues growing longer and longer almost by the month. Don’t forget, this is an age before Instagram; I can only imagine how busy the same resorts would have been had people been able to send multi-coloured ski onesie pics to their followers (#yardsale #blackrun #blessed). In the end, the extraordinary peak simmered away, and the hole in lift pass revenue needed to be filled; cue the 90s’ rise of the snowboarder, to keep resort finances healthy.

It was only a matter of time before people like us would see exotic snowboard and ski films, with sponsored riders able to reach the chest deep powder of those famous dormant cinder cones. The new(ish) legend of Japanese skiing brings this history to today, but there remains one important question. Skiing in the Land of the Rising Sun may have grown from the 30s onwards, but where exactly did it start? Where is their Mürren, or Chamonix?

There are multiple candidates for the first Japanese ski venue, and no doubt you’ll find plenty of different answers around, so let’s set out the one rule that matters: it’s a proper skiing centre if it has a permanent, mechanical ski lift. On Japan’s main Island, Honshu, is a town called Nozawa Onsen. Onsen roughly translates as Spa, and this town was known for its spa waters (of which there are multiple springs) long before skiing arrived here. The original village ski club was established just in time for the roaring 20s, with the first lift put down in 1924. As you may expect of the next couple of decades, alpine skiing was recreation for the wealthy. Locating the country’s early lifts in a spa town was a logical move for the pioneers. The consequence of putting the first ski area beside a town dating from the 1100s is a merging of a thousand years of Japanese history, architecture and culture, and a resort suitably full of quirks (the in-village chair lift for example, which doesn’t take you to a piste, but seems a logical way of moving people up hill in any context, to those who see them through their windows every day). This resort appears to be the first fully established venue in Japan, and within the country it remains one of the most well-known, not just for the history of its town and its pistes, but also for its bottomless powder. A bit of history and culture is worth having on any trip, so when I get my visit to Japan, this place is heading up my schedule, even if they do use a cuddly pickled leaf as their mascot.