The Snow Country of the Nobel Prize

Shimizu Tunnel

(Minami Uonuma City, Nigata Prefecture) 

【Yukiguni（雪国）】means an area with heavy snowfall, “Snow Country”. It is also title of a novel written by the Nobel Prize in Literature recipient Yasunari Kawabata.

  The story starts with “The train came out of the long tunnel into the snow country (雪国).” The tunnel described in the scene is the Shimizu tunnel that goes through high mountain range (2,000m) between boarder of Gunma Prefecture and Nigata Prefecture. The mountain range blocks cold winds from the North, Sea of Japan. It dumps heavy snow on Nagano side and less in Gunma side. The protagonist of the novel rode on a train and saw the changing view of scenery into the white country.

I took a local train to follow the same route as the main character of the novel or Yasunari Kawabata might took. The train ran in the snow from Gunma Prefecture. Sparse passengers were watching the view from the window. Sometimes they walked in a train car to take photos from the view of driver’s cab. Everything were covered by snow. The train went through long tunnels to the Nigata Prefecture. 

At the middle of a tunnel, the train stopped at an underground station (Doai station). The station is located at 70 m depth. From the platform, you need to go up 486 steps on your foot to the ground. People call the station the mole station.

As the train went through several tunnels and went into the other side of mountain range, Nigata Prefecture, the snow was deeper as the novel described it was the Snow Country. I got off the train at Echigo Yuzawa station, famous for hot spring and sky resort , where the story of the Snow Country unfolded.

The rout was one of the important ancient highway to connect Sea of Japan side and Pacific side over the mountain range. The military campaigns and battles happened over the land of this mountain area in the medieval era. The feudal government in the 18th century maintained the road as one of the main-roads in the country. 

The Shinkansen (Bullet Train) operates on the same route as the local train but I recommend to take a local train if you have time and want to feel the novel’s world of Yasunori Kawabata. From Takasaki station (Gunma Prefecture) to Echigo Yuzawa station (Nigata Prefecture), it takes 30 minutes by Shinkansen while two hours for a local train.