[1] Itakura Katsunobu, Yama to yuki no nikki, (Sapporo: Nihon sangaku meitai zenshū, 1962), 195.

[2] For a detailed account of Kojima's ascent see Kondō Nobuyuki, Kojima Usui: Yama no fūryū shisha den (Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 1978); For more on Banryū's alpine exploration see Matsuura Takashirō, “Banryū shōnin ni yarigatake kaizan” (Sokayama no kai: 2004).

[3] For more on Itakura's mountaineering feats in the Alps see Yasukawa Shigeo, Kindai nihon tozan shi (Tokyo: Kisetsu shokan, 1976), 339-359; and Tsunemichi Ikeda, “From the Japanese Alps to the Greatest Ranges of the World,” in Japanese Alpine Centenary, (Tokyo: Alpine Club of Japan, 2005), 31-36.

[4] Itakura, Yama to yuki no nikki, 211.

[5] See Kären Wigen, “Discovering the Japanese Alps: Meiji Mountaineering and the Quest for Geographical Enlightenment,” Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 31, No. 1, (2005).

[6] Due in great part to the relative youth of settlements in Hokkaidō, Hokkaidō University was the only national university (kokuritsu) on the island, which made the AACH the only sponsored mountaineering club until the end of the Second World War. While a few tankenbu (exploration club) and wandabogeru (Wandervogel, in German) existed at Hokkaidō University, no other club actively pursued technical mountaineering until the late 1950s. After the postwar education reforms numerous universities were founded, and with them came an influx in university mountaineering clubs.

[7] Wigen, “Meiji Mountaineering,” 5.

[8] See, for example, Yasukawa Shigeo, Kindai nihon tozan shi, 1-11. Yasukawa periodizes the advent of modern mountaineering history as concurrent with the arrival of Perry's blackships in 1853, and devotes a great deal of attention to the influence of foreign climbers on pioneering Japan's first major ascents; see also Alpine Club of Japan, Nihon sangaku kai hyakunen shi (Tokyo: Nihon sangaku kai, 2007), 5-14.

[9] Wigen, “Meiji Mountaineering,” 1.

[10] For an exhaustive analysis of this effort to rein in Hokkaidō see Vivian Blaxell, “Designs of Power: The “Japanization” of Urban and Rural Space in Colonial Hokkaidō,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 35-2-09, August 31, 2009.

[11] See “Tanken no jidai,” in Me de miru nihon tozan shi (Tokyo: Yama to keikokusha, 2005), 28.

[12] Brett Walker, “Mamiya Rinzo and the Japanese Exploration of Sakhalin Island: cartography and empire,” Journal of Historical Geography, Vol. 33, (2007), 288.

[13] The two most prominent industries pursued by the Kaitakushi in Hokkaidō at the time were coal mining and timber harvesting. See Kaitakushi jidai, (Sapporo-shi Kyōiku iinkai: 1989), 33-60.

[14] Wigen, “Meiji Mountaineering,” 6.

[15] Literature on mountaineering is prodigious. See, for example, Colin Wells, A Brief History of British Mountaineering, (London: British Mountaineering Council, 2002); Peter H. Hansen, “Albert Smith, the Alpine Club, and the Invention of Mountaineering in Mid-Victorian Britain,” Journal of British Studies, Vol. 34, No. 3 (1995); Fergus Flemming, Killing Dragons: The Conquest of the Alps, (London: Granta Books, 2000); and Trevor Braham, When the Alps Cast Their Spell: Mountaineers of the Golden Age of Alpinism, (New York: In Pinn, 2004).

[16] Shiga Shigetaka, for example, studied geography at Sapporo Agricultural College in Hokkaidō and went on to play a central role in the popularization of mountaineering in the late nineteenth century. See Wigen, “Meiji Mountaineering,” 6-10. Other geographer-cum-climbers include Benjamin Lyman and Itakura Katsunobu.

[17] “Hito wa naze yama ni noboru no ka,” in Taiyo Bessatsu: Nihon no kokoro, Vol. 103, Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1998), 60. Special thanks to Martin Hood for bringing this passage to my attention.

[18] Lyman's journals are available in the Northern Studies Collection, Hokkaidō University, Sapporo, Japan. Taisetsuzan is a less common transliteration of Daisetsuzan, a towering mountain range in central Hokkaidō.

[19] Ainu contributions to the pioneering of the sport are a highly understudied topic. Scant records indicate that Ainu guides played a critical role in the earliest in-season ascents of Hokkaidō's peak. Kaitakushi agents regularly hired Ainu guides and used their knowledge of hunting trails and mountain passes to scout routes and plan climbs. Due to the nature of the documentation, which was written by the foreign mountaineers themselves, the importance of these Ainu guides in understated, if not absent altogether. Indeed, this was the case for the earliest ascents of Japanese peaks throughout the archipelago. The earliest climbs of Britain's Walter Weston, for example, would not have happened without the aid of local hunter guides. In fact, it is likely that many claims at first ascents are likely false: local hunters and Buddhist practitioners of shugendō (an ascetic, mountain-dwelling faith), such as Banryū, likely beat sport climbers by decades. This debate has elicited much comment and some criticism by modern scholars interested in Japan's alpine landscapes. For a critical assessment of Weston and a convincing description of the role played by the lesser-known Japanese guides see Scott Schnell, “Reverence or Recreation,” Working Paper, Asian Studies Conference Japan, (June 2009). For more on Ainu perceptions of mountains and nature see, for example, Yamada Takako, The Worldview of the Ainu: Nature and the Cosmos From Language, (Tokyo: Kegan Paul International, 2002).

[20] For a more detailed profile of the trail blazers in Hokkaidō see “Ezo sangaku kai kaihō,” No. 39, 22-44; and Koizumi, T., Tozan no tanjyō: Hito ha naze yama ni noboru you ni natta no ka, (Tokyo: Chūkō shinsho, 2001).

[21] See Yasukawa Shigeo, Kindai nihon tozan shi, 325-375.

[22] Tsunemichi Ikeda, “From the Japanese Alps to the Greatest Ranges of the World,” in Japanese Alpine Centenary, (Tokyo: Alpine Club of Japan, 2005), 31.

[23] For further information on the emergence of the mountaineering literature genre in Japan see Fujioka Nobuko, “Vision or Creation? Kojima Usui and the Literary Landscape of the Japanese Alps,” Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 39, No. 4, (2002), 3,4, 8, 11; Wigen, “Meiji Mountaineering,” 8, 10-16; and Yasukawa Shigeo, Kindai nihon tozan shi, 73-121.

[24] Wigen, “Meiji Mountaineering,” 23.

[25] Although he is best known for his mountaineering feats in the Japan and Swiss Alps, Maki “Yūkō” Aritsune's greatest contribution to mountaineering in Japan lies in the role he played as a conduit and distributor of modern climbing technology, a responsibility he took on as an ambassador for the Nihon Sangaku kai to Europe. Maki's distribution of equipment gave countless aspiring alpinists the hardware they needed to innovate their craft.

[26] The history of Hokkaidō's peaks would be incomplete without a brief mention of the thriving ski culture that well predates mountaineering. Beginning in the early 1880s, ski slopes and resorts were established in the southern half of the island, with the first recorded recreational slope opened at Mt. Teine just outside of Sapporo in 1882. In 1903, Hokkaidō University created its own ski club, which held regular trips to the slopes near Sapporo and soon ventured further into the wilderness to places like Niseko and Daisetsuzan where they engaged in backcountry skiing—a natural precursor to alpine mountaineering. For more on its history see Hokkaidō daigaku sukii bu nanajyūnen shi (Sapporo: Hokudai yama no kai, 1982); for a broader discussion of the history of skiing in Japan see Nakamura Kenji, Nihon sukii no hasshōsen shi ni tsuite no kenkyū, Hokkaidō University Collection of Academic Papers, (2001) Vol. 84, 85-106.

[27] The club's activities from 1926-2005 have been expertly documented by the AACH's archivist, Nakamura Haruhiko. See Hokudai sangakubu yama no kai, Sangakubu nenpyo, (Sapporo: 2007). For further information on the activities examined in this paper see Hokudai sangakubu yama no kai, Hokkaidō sangakubu yama no kai shashin shū, (Sapporo: 2007), 1-9.

[28] For more on the foundation of the RCC and Itakura's contributions to it see Yasukawa Shigeo, Kindai nihon tozan shi, 377-383.

[29] Nihon sangaku meishu zenshū, (Tokyo: Akanu shuppansha, 1962), 154.

[30] The shrine, Ashikuraji (芦峅寺), was erected near Itakura's birthplace in Toyama. It is still visited regularly by mountaineers climbing in the nearby Chubu Sangaku National Park.

[31] Wigen, “Meiji Mountaineering,” 15.

[32] Itakura, Yama to yuki no nikki, 175.

[33] Aspiring female alpinists did not join the AACH until the postwar era. This is not as much a reflection of the limited role played by females in the pioneering of the sport as it is a product of the overwhelmingly male demographics of Hokkaidō University. Only 29 female students were enrolled at Hokkaidō University from 1918 to 1947. See Hokkaidō Daigaku hyakunijyūnen shi, henshūshitsu (ed), “Hokudai no hyakunijyūnen shi”, (Sapporo: Hokkaidō Daigaku Tosho Kankōkai, 2001), 37. For a comprehensive treatment of the history of women and mountaineering in Japanese see Sakakura Toshiko, Nihon jyosei tozan shi, (Tokyo: Daitsuki shoten,1992).

[34] For more on the history of mountaineering publications in the pre-war period see Matsūra Takashi, Sangaku zasshi no rekishi ni tsuite, (Tokyo: Sokayama no kai shuppan, 2003).

[35] An excellent collection of documents that reveal the burgeoning consumer culture underlying mountaineering, including nearly 1000 pages of advertisements, profiles, and photographs, is Nihon sangaku kai, Sōhō, Vol. 8, (Tokyo: Nihon sangaku kai, 1989).

[36] The Japanese Alpine Society was founded nearly half a century after the British Alpine club (1857). It came at the tail end of a long lineage of premier national mountaineering institutions: the Osterreichische Alpenverein in 1862, the Schweizer Alpenclub and the Club Alpino Italiano in 1863, and the Club Alpin Francais and the Osterreichischer Alpenclub in 1878. In North America, the Appalachia Mountain Club was established in 1878, then the American Alpine Club in 1902. Both the New Zealand Alpine Club and the Mountain Club of South Africa were founded in 1891.

[37] See, for example, Hattori Hideo, Tōge no rekishigaku, (Tokyo: Asahi shimbunsha, 2007).

[38] For more on the creation of the JAC see Me de miru nihon tozan shi, 130-152; Yasukawa Shigeo, Kindai nihon tozan shi, 210-224; and Wigen, “Meiji Mountaineering,” 4, 7-10.

[39] See Andrew Bernstein, “Whose Fuji? Religion, Region, and State in the Fight for a National Symbol,” Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 63, No 1, (2008).

[40] For more on the social and political forces brewing at this time see Kevin Doak. A History of Nationalism in Modern Japan: Placing the People. (Boston: Brill Publishers, 2007).

[41] For more on the creation of Hokkaidō and the history of local spaces see Vivian Blaxell, “Designs of Power: The “Japanization” of Urban and Rural Space in Colonial Hokkaidō.”

[42] For an in-depth narrative of the development of Hokkaidō's railway industry see Dan Free, Early Japanese Railways 1853-1914: Engineering Triumphs That Transformed Meiji-era Japan (New York: Tuttle, 2009); for general information on the Kaitakushi and scientific programs in Hokkaidō see Brett Walker, “Sanemori's Revenge”; and John Maki, William Smith Clark: a Yankee in Sapporo, (Boston: Lexington Books, 2002).

[43] Interestingly, these coal seams were discovered by Benjamin Lyman in 1873 during his exploration of the island as a Kaitakushi official and professor of Geology at Sapporo Agricultural College.

[44] Brett Walker, “Sanemori's Revenge: Insects, Eco-System Accidents, and Policy Decisions in Japan's Environmental History” Journal of Policy History, Vol. 19, No. 1 (2007), 17.

[45] Tsunemichi Ikeda, “From the Japanese Alps to the Greatest Ranges of the World,” 32.

[46] By the 1930s it became club protocol to write pre- and post-expedition reports on each climb. These reports are available in the club's archives. See Hokudai sangakubu jyōhō, Vol. 7, (Sapporo: Hokudai sangakubu yama no kai zenshū, 1940), 5-65.

[47] Hokudai sangakubu yama no kai, Hachijyū shūnen shi, (Sapporo: Hokudai sangakubu yama no kai, 2007), 22.

[48] The Hidaka range is the only range in Hokkaido, and one of only three ranges in all of Japan, that shows evidence of glaciation. For more see Umezawa S., Sugawara Y., and Nakagawa J., Hokkaidō hidaka sanmyaku no yama (Sapporo: Hokkaidō Shimbunsha, 1991).

[49] Hokudai sangaku yama no kai kaihō, Vol. 7, (Sapporo: Academic Alpine Club of Hokkaidō, 1942), 22-32. For additional accounts of these traverses see Hokudai sangaku yama no kai, Kaihō, Vol. 7, 7-35; and Kaihō, Vol. 8, 1-84.

[50] In a revealing document dated 1939 the author describes the effort to conquer Petegaridake: “this tent, born from a lengthy development process, will give us the advantage to conquer the mountain… we have considered every contingency and feel more confident.” See Hokudai sangakubu yama no kai, Kaihō, Vol. 7, 89.

[51] See Hokudai sangakubu yama no kai, Kaihō, Vol. 7, 22.

[52] The original telegram is available in the AACH archives. See Hokudai sangaku bu yama no kai, “Uchida Takehiko shū,” Sangakukan, Sapporo, Hokkaidō.

[53] Hōchi Shimbun, “To Those Who Tempt the White Devil”, January 21, 1940.

[54] Hokkaidō Daigaku Shimbun, February 8, 1940, page 3.

[55] On July 14, 1865 a group of seven climbers successfully summited the Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps. On the descent a member of the team lost his footing and took three of his rope partners over a cliff to their deaths. Whymper and the remaining two guides were spared only because the rope snapped. In the days to follow, sensational accounts of the accident captivated European media outlets and prompted a public condemnation of the mountaineering community in general and the Whymper party in particular. For more on the Whymper party incident see Peter Hansen, “Albert Smith, the Alpine Club, and the Invention of Mountaineering in MidVictorian Britain,” 318.

[56] Hokudai sangakubu yama no kai, Kaihō, Vol. 7, 24, 26, 33.

[57] In the decades following the conclusion of the Second World War, Japanese climbers shifted their sights to Himalayan big peak climbing, undertaking impressive expeditions to Tibet and Nepal to put up a slew of first ascents and variations.

[58] Peter Hansen, “Albert Smith, the Alpine Club, and the Invention of Mountaineering in MidVictorian Britain,” 317.

[59] For examples of this type of language in AACH documents see Hokudai sangaku bu yama no kai, Kaihō, Vol. 7, 90, 92, 96, 106, 108.

[60] “Hokkaido no yukiyama e iko,” in Gakujin, January 1943, 25.

[61] Itakura, Yama to yuki no nikki, 88. “Teppen made ” was a common rallying cry for alpinists and is a term regularly used by the AACH.