THE LOCATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF SKIING GROUND AT NOZAWA SPA VILLAGE, NAGANO PREFECTURE, CENTRAL JAPAN

Abstract

There are about 500 skiing grounds in Japan. Their location depends upon the complex of various factors…principally physical, traffic condition, secondarily local industries, land ownership, and capital investment. It is necessary for the geographical study of the skiing grounds to research the factors above mentioned. The writer analyzes in this paper those factors of the Nozawa skiing ground, Nagano Pref. As the result, the writer shows several facts as follows: I. The Nozawa skiing ground has the four developing stages, 1) Introducing stage (1913-'29), 2) Founding stage (1930-'39), 3) Developing stage (1940-'60), 4) Expanding stage (after 1961). The 1950's were the developing years of skiing grounds in the nation wide scale. The developers from Tokyo were more active than local people to skiing grounds. However, the management of skiing ground at Nozawa was transfered to the village government from the Nozawa Skiing Club, and the scale of its ground and facilities were enlarged, as a result, Nozawa skiing ground acquired the nation wide fame in the 1960's. II. Nozawa, one of the deep snow area in the central Japan, has conquered its economic handicap in winter by founding skiing ground. It was very important that the leaders of this village considered to conquest the handicap of snow. Many village houses change to the skier's inns “lnshuku” (Minshuku is a cheap lodging houses in tourist resort, and most of them are usually operated by farmers or fishers as side work.) in winter. This skiing ground did not appear spontaneously, on the contrary, it was introduced systemath cally to conquer the handicap of snow. III. The area of skiing grounds is formed of renting the forest and waste lands in Japan. As for Nozawa Skiing Ground, it is same. The charge of these leased land is very cheap (10-20yen/m2). Up to now, the skiing grounds are not used except in winter. It should be considered to make a counterplan for the protection of soil and natural environment as a whole. IV. The settlement of Nozawa was a local health spa just after the World War II. Since the 1950's, this function had changed to skiing from local health spa. For this reason, Minshukus have been founded since the 1960's, and they have remarkably increased in the 1970's. V. The tourist industry at Nozawa becomes very active according to the development of skiing industry. Consequently, the population engaging in service and construction industry have increased. As a result, the decrease of village population has stopped in the 1970's. On the other hand, about 250 temporary labourers in winter are being required from the neighbouring areas.