There's no business like snow business
A few weeks ago I had things to do in Tokyo and Yokohama, so I had a ticket booked for a late-afternoon train from Nagano on Jan. 22. Then that morning my manager in Tokyo phoned to tell me I should come early ...
Come what may, we're doing just fine
Rain had started pelting the cherry blossoms when I returned from Tokyo last month, squelching the plans of countless would-be outdoor revelers. Here in Kurohime in northern Nagano Prefecture the snow was melting and the Torii River, which rises in ancient Togakushi and is fed ...
New horse lodge signals the way ahead
On July 15, 2016, just a few minutes' gentle canter from our splendid Afan Trust Centre here in the hills outside Kurohime in northern Nagano Prefecture, we officially opened our brand-new, first-ever horse lodge. Designed by Nobuaki Furuya and his team at Waseda University in ...
Forest horror led to an honor from 'foes'
As I write this in my home outside Kurohime, it's astonishing to realize it has been 36 years since I came to live in the hills of northern Nagano Prefecture. Back then, as I still am, I was eager to learn more about the wildlife ...
Naturalist C.W. Nicol wins Green Culture Prize for forestry efforts
Nagano naturalist C.W. Nicol has been named co-winner of the Green Culture Prize for his outstanding work on woodlands restoration. A longtime contributor to The Japan Times, Nicol received the annual award Saturday from the National Land Afforestation Promotion Organization, an affiliate of the Forestry ...
All set for our woods' own horse power
Over the past three years, the C.W. Nicol Afan Woodland Trust has been bringing down people and horses from Tono and Morioka in Iwate Prefecture to help us take out trees we've been thinning from our woods here in northern Nagano Prefecture — and ...
A tale of two parks, and their preservation
As I sit in my study here in Kurohime in the hills of northern Nagano Prefecture, through the window I can see 2,053-meter Mount Kurohime, a dormant volcano that's forested to the top. Legend in these parts has it that the mountain is the home ...
