Vol.12 To Hakodate

This time I would like to write about my business trip to Hakodate, which I took on December 21st and 22nd.

Arrived in Hakodate at 9:10 AM.

I thought it wouldn't be that cold in southern Hokkaido, but when I arrived it was -5℃...

I was fully dressed for the cold so I didn't shiver, but it was still a much colder day than in Tokyo.

The purpose of this trip is to visit a leather dealer and make purchases.

I think that regular brands and manufacturers often do business with leather wholesalers and OEM manufacturers.
Since 2013, SEVESKIG has been doing business directly with a tanner (a leather shop that leather wholesalers purchase from) located one block behind a leather wholesaler.

It depends on the company, but it can be quite difficult to deal directly with a tanner, but this time, thanks to the tanner's arrangement, we were introduced to the original raw leather dealer, and we were able to negotiate directly with the tanner present.

It's a factory that we manufacturers would normally never enter.

I can't go into the exact location, but the factory is located in the mountains, about a 20-minute express train ride from Hakodate and then a 20-minute drive from there.
I often visit the tannery, so I was used to seeing raw hides, but I was also able to see the process that goes into turning them into raw hides.

I can't tell you the details of the recipe, so I'll skip that.

The first thing we were shown was the moon bear from Honshu.

It had distinctive white fur around its neck and was about one size smaller than a brown bear.

It feels a little hard because it hasn't been oiled yet.

The next thing I saw was this.

If you just look at this, you probably won't know what kind of skin it is.

This was the first time I'd seen it, but it's the fur of a sea lion.

Apparently it is now illegal to hunt this fur, making it quite a rare animal.

When you think of Hokkaido and sea lions, you may be reminded of the father of Jun-kun's girlfriend Yui-chan's husband from the North Country series.

It was a shocking sight to see my father riding on the drift ice and coming back with a sea lion.

If you don't understand, try watching "From the North Country 2002: The Testament, Part 2."

After that, we had a chance to take a tour of the factory.

A worker is prepping the wood for the back-processing machine.

I was interested in doing a detailed job.

It's like a knife for cutting meat.

I said that it was a waste of meat, but apparently the meat of the animals that are used for fur is soaked in water and therefore inedible, so it has to be turned into fertilizer.

I still took more photos, but I will skip them as they were too stimulating.

After that, we got to the main subject of purchasing the bear with its fur attached.

This is a real brown bear! Its size and shiny fur make it stand out.

This time I purchased two, one with mostly black and one with a beautiful, shiny spotted fur.

I will post what I make on my blog at a later date.

It was a truly valuable experience in a place that is normally off-limits.

Brands that mass-produce garments from bear leather are rare around the world, but it seems there are no brands that use fur.

I have already written in my previous blog (Vol. 5) why we use wild game such as deer and bear.

As we talked about various things, I was made to realize that the current situation in Hokkaido is one in which there are many questionable and distorted things.

Originally, hunting was actively carried out by Ainu people and non-Ainu people alike, but nowadays only members of the Hunters' Association hunt.

Some people use the furs they capture to make souvenirs and local specialties, but the government does not seem to think highly of fur.

Leather is fine, but fur doesn't have a good image, so it's no good.

I think it's wrong to farm and kill animals just for their fur, but I was shocked to see that the fur of animals that were slaughtered for attacking livestock, or even humans, or causing damage to crops, is being lumped together with that of other animals.

What's even more surprising is that this is the government's thinking.

Ideally, I think the government should take the lead in collecting fur, leather, bones, and meat, and setting up appropriate factories to process them into products.

Of course, I think it is also necessary to avoid killing animals and coexist with them.

They actually build cages with traps and send any bears caught back into the mountains several times.

This year, due to bad weather, there has been a poor nut harvest, and the bears that were sent home are now appearing in villages and towns again, attacking chickens at poultry farmers and horses and cows on ranches.

In that case, the hunting association will have to go and shoot.

The pests caught by members of the hunting association are basically disposed of as fertilizer, thrown away with general garbage, or buried.

Instead of throwing them away, the rawhide can be turned into dog chews, and the bones and horns can be sterilized and made into dog toys.

Some hunters make contracts with game restaurants to sell meat wholesale, but such cases only account for a few thousand of the 400,000 game killed each year.

What we can do is really very little, but if more people feel the same way, the current situation of wasting lives should gradually decrease.

I also believe it is our mission to make minor game leather more mainstream.

This business trip really made me think about a lot of things and it gave me the motivation to put what I can into action.

I'm hoping to do something by next year that will get people around me who agree with me involved.

It's getting a little heated, so I'll stop here for now.

Thank you very much to Shimada-san for bringing me to this place.

See you later!

NORI