The sheltering effect of Sado Island on wind waves off Niigata city’s coast is the reason why the capital city was built where it was. Typically, Niigata city gets about twice as much snow as Tokyo does annually.  The winter of 2020 was no different, but in the first weeks of January 2021, we have seen once in a decade snowfall.  In normal years the coastline is free of snow, but 10 - 15 kilometers inland is Snow Country Niigata, and anywhere you can view Sado Island typically means rain.  On the sections of Niigata’s coastline that experiences the Sado Island sheltering effect, you will find plants such as the Paperplant (Fatsia Japonica), which grows in regions with little or no snow and is native to Southern Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, along with other plants such as the green tea plant and many others.

Whooper Swans migrate by the tens of thousands to Niigata each winter.  On any given winter day, you can find them in the rice fields, especially near the coastline, where the Whooper Swans, too, benefit from Sado Island’s sheltering effect.  Due to snowfall, there is a period of about 1 - 2 weeks where the swans are in short supply of food, as you can see the conditions that deprive them of food in the photos of my home, but a graceful and hearty bird, the Whopper Swans feed in winter a few days a week or less and can survive a week or more without food while spending their days sleeping on frozen ponds as you see in the image below.

The attached image on this newsletter and the ones below are of my 100-year-old traditional Japanese home in Niigata on the mainland, and we are a 10-minute walk to the nearest beach.  My village is located directly facing Sado Island just 32 km out to sea.

My village generally enjoys the highest percentage of the sheltering effect from Sado Island, and normally it rains in the winter, with little to no snow as I mentioned earlier.  But in the past couple of weeks, a strong low-pressure system rammed into Niigata Snow country.  The images of my driveway below may look like a lot of snow to some people.  Still, I’m used to it because of where I was born in Canada, in the polar bear capital of the world, and I am local of Niigata, and I have a cottage in Hokkaido where I have been leading winter wonderland Hokkaido Photography Tours for over 20 years, so snow is nothing new to me.  In my part of Niigata, it makes no sense to own a gas-powered snowblower, so all the snow removal is done with a shovel in hand, and happily, for my wife and I, in our community, the main roads are cleared by the proc with snow removal graders.  After the most recent snowfall, once I cleared my driveway, I took a drive around the hamlet where we reside for about half the year, and I enjoyed photographing Whooper Swans and other wildlife in the region.  This is the one winter out of 20 that I won’t be in Hokkaido, but lucky me, I stayed in Niigata, and I got once in a decade snow, so I’m enjoying my Snow Country experience.