It was the first Monday of our two-week ‘workation‘, and we started off the week in style – a 3am wake-up to we could drive to Kiritappu, have a paddle, and get back to our cabin at Lake Furen by 9am for remote work. We got to the put-in at just after 4am, just as the land was being lit up for the day. As we were unloading the canoe and gear, a friendly local drove up and had a chat.
“You’re up early,” he chimed. “Great time to see the birds!” he continued.
He regaled me with some stories of his escapades in the wetlands and then carried on his way.
We knew it was going to be a fairly quick trip, so we started out by paddling a ways upstream. It didn’t take long before we had painted ourselves into a corner, and had to paddle backwards downstream to get to where it was wide enough to turn around. Even then, it was a tight squeeze.
We got the boat turned around, and carried on our way our way downstream. It was eerily calm, with a low mist hanging over the landscape. Misty Kiritappu at its finest.
“This is sort of like Bibi River on steroids,” I remarked to Haidee. Bibi River is a wetland-like river just a few kilometers away from Hokkaido’s main airport – New Chitose Airport.
Just like Bibi River, there was long, head-high grass on both sides of the river. Unlike the Bibi River, however, here on the Biwase River there’s a vastly deeper feeling of wilderness. Carefully standing up in the canoe, we could peek over the grass, and get eye-to-eye with curious deer on the wetland plains.
Further down the river, we sneaked up on glorious white-tailed eagles. They were mostly nonchalant, only giving us the occasional disinterested gaze.
Aware of needing to be back ‘at work’ before 9am, we turned around at the 3.5km mark and made our way back upstream, against a receding tide.
We agreed that we could happily get used to this kind of before-work morning exercise.
3 thoughts on “Kiritappu Wetland Canoeing”
Rob, love reading about your Hokkaido canoeing adventures. I would be interested in paddling some of these rivers and lakes by public-transport accessible packrafting where it exists. I recognise packrafts aren’t as fast and obviously not as durable as canoes but from a practical standpoint carting around 3 kg in rubber will be hell of a lot easier than dealing with a heavy and bulky hardshell canoe. For these canoe touring routes would you foresee any particular issues substituting a canoe for a packraft or extra precautions to be aware of. In other words, do you think you would feel as confident in your packraft (beginner / intermediate routes) as you would in your canoe?
Hey David, short story is yes – most, if not all routes, would be suitable for a packraft, even (or perhaps especially) the advanced river routes (caveats regarding flatwater and wind for packrafts aside). That’s why we try to include public transport options where available. The reason we don’t use our packraft more often is simply because we can use the canoe, which is more roomy, comfy, and efficient. Doesn’t bounce off rocks as nicely though 🙂
If I get the chance, I might add some notes to the routes regarding feasibility for packrafts. The main concern will be flatwater unsheltered from the wind. We’ve paddled into a headwind in the packraft before and it was not ideal 🙂
Cheers for the comment, and apologies for not getting back sooner – we were in the hills for a few days.
No worries at all Rob and I appreciate the info 😊