In the quiet back-roads of northern Hokkaido, I found the Sakura-no-Taki Falls after a short drive through beautiful farm-roads amidst well maintained boxy northern farm houses that typify this part of Japan.

Kiyosato, nestled between the Shiretoko and Lake Akan National Parks, is voted one of 100 best Farm Villages in Japan, and the views from its pristine cultivated fields at the foothills of Mt Shari one of the most photogenic of all backdrops in Japan.

The Falls themselves were quiet and uncrowded. A few teenagers had ventured to fly-fish Cherry salmons returning to spawn at their birthplace along the Shari River – one final act for nature-kind before individual elimination from the earthly cycle of life. 

As I stared and imagined the immense difficulties that this traverse endures, and how the survival of species is programmed into the life-cycle of nature, I wonder if Human-kind still share that same instinct or whether as a species, we have diminished our sense of longevity for the next generation to the self-interests of the present.

(Lumix G85; Lumix 12-60mm lens, August 2018)