Recounting the Echoing Incident
Time flies. I published TheTomamae Bear Incident: The Greatest Tragedy in the History of Animal Attacks in December of 1965, on the fiftieth anniversary. And now 1995, the eightieth anniversary, approaches.
Looking back, this sad history of the frontier, which the public has tried to forget, has been given form by a conspicuously large number of artistic works, allowing the knowledge of the event to be passed on. As somebody who has investigated this incident and poured over the historical records, for that I am delighted.
In 1965, the great author Togawa Yukio had a story published in the Shinchōsha August special edition. Called The Bear Wind, it was the “true story of the atrocities of a bandoliered bear which, in an instant, plunged a nameless frontier area in Hokkaidō into the depths of despair.” Later on, Togawa had a serialized novel called The Wrath of the Bear which ran for a long time in the Hokkaidō Times. Did Togawa indeed have a deep interest in the Sankebetsu Incident? Well, after The Lord was published in 1964, he found the tenacity to publish another two works on the subject.
Let’s take a look at a passage titled, “Judgment of Animal Nature,” from The Wrath of the Bear, which ran from June 12th, 1964 to April 21st, 1965 (in the story, Bunpei is Togawa, Professor Inugami is the prestigious Professor Inukai of Hokkaidō University, and Kimura Zenta is myself, Kimura Moritake):
Bunpei, after writing without stopping up to a certain point, put down his brush and thought seriously about the next sentence. Being that this would be the part that ended the writing, he wanted to append something which would leave a great impression.
This tale was based on an incident which had occurred in 1915 in Hokkaidō, in a little frontier village called Sankebetsu somewhere near Tomamae, way out in Teshio Province. It was the most loss of life a bear had ever caused in Japan, and given the overwhelming cruelty, it required something special.
Several years ago Bunpei had heard this story from Professor Inugami, well-known at Hokkaidō University as a bear researcher. This had awakened an unusual interest in Bunpei, spurring on his career as a writer. He borrowed documents from the professor and published short pieces in several magazines. This particular work had been very popular among his circle of friends, but Bunpei was not satisfied. He thought it unworthy of the documents graciously lent to him by the professor.
A writer is a creature which will, having written something which satisfies him, not wish to write something similar to that again. But should he feel unsatisfied by a work, he will try to write it over and over.
However, the editors of publications are a different sort. “Wonderful! Please, something like that last one!” It always sounded sarcastic to Bunpei. It was just as well that the editors of other magazines hadn’t given his works a second look. Yes, he would go to Tomamae. He would see the same sights and stand on the same ground where it had all happened. He would talk to the survivors, gather all the evidence, and when he was done, he would have a masterpiece so raw it would be practically dripping with blood. But even as he thought about doing this, tied down by a number of commitments, always saying, “Maybe tomorrow,” one day he received a letter.
It was from a Kimura Zenta, from the Kotanbetsu branch of the Imperial Household Forestry Agency. This was not a man Bunpei recalled having met, but he opened it anyway.
The letter began, “Please pardon me for such an abrupt letter to someone unknown to me.” Then, “Actually, at my previous position, at the Ōyuki branch of the Imperial Forestry Agency, I read your book based on the man-eating bear of Sankebetsu. This inspired me to do some research into the disaster caused by the bear. And it so happens that I was transferred to the Kotanbetsu branch, which has administration over the Sankebetsu area. This has made me want to leave behind an accurate record of what happened. So could I please have your permission to excerpt a portion of your book?”
Bunpei replied at once that of course he could, if he thought it would be helpful.
Because of this, Bunpei ended up putting off his trip to Sankebetsu. About half a year later, he received a thick response from Kimura. This was that very painstaking investigation.
He had checked the lay of the land as it was now and as it had been. He had recorded the positions of plants, forests, croplands, and houses in detail, and he had even met with people familiar with the events and the families of the dead. As a record of what had happened it was flawless, with no stone left unturned.
With a history this detailed, there was no need to go to Sankebetsu.
Bunpei wrote a letter to Kimura, asking his permission to write something based on this investigation.
This was, at long last, the book Bunpei wanted to write. Again he took up his pen…
Next, let’s familiarize ourselves with The Bear Storm by Yoshimura Akira (published in 1977 by Shinchōsha).
In January of 1974, I received a call at the Asahikawa Branch of the Imperial Household Forestry Agency. It was from Yoshimura himself: he wanted to make The Tomamae Bear Incident: The Greatest Tragedy in the History of Animal Attacks into a novel and would like to meet me as soon as possible.
Yoshimura was making a name for himself as a writer, and, wanting to get to know him, I agreed to meet with him. The following month, he exited Asahikawa Airport in the company of a pair of reporters. The meeting was arranged to happen, under my supervision, at the offices of the Asahikawa branch of the Imperial Household Forestry Agency. Sharing the same goal, I sent my approval in two letters. To touch on the difficulty of adapting this incident into a literary work, I present an excerpt from The Winter Sea (published in 1981 by Chikuma Books):
After that, we went to Asahikawa to meet with Mr. Kimura Moritake. He graciously allowed me access to his materials and became my guide.
I set to writing. The incident was already so theatrical, it would be a Herculean task to chew through it. With a mind to depart from the other historical novels on the subject I had amassed for the past four years, I set about crafting an accessible fictionalized account founded on the historical record, a reconstruction. In three months I had a novel of some three hundred and fifty pages, but I was unhappy with the fact that some of the facts remained as they were, undiluted, like pebbles in an otherwise fine sand. I had to grind down those pebbles further, and so I let the work set for a year. Then I came at it not as the author, but as a mere reader. I then took another year to rewrite it from the ground up, at which point I completed it. It is the most difficult novel I have ever written. It was called The Bear Storm, and it was published by Shinchōsha in the May of 1977.
One day I received a phone call from Yoshimura. He told me the happy news that The Bear Storm was going to become a television serial, a joint production of Yomiuri Television and Toei.
A little while later, I was told that the writer Kuramoto Sō’s The Bear Storm was being turned into a radio drama by Tōkyō Broadcasting and it would be aired throughout the whole country. And just to add to the festivities, the drama later won a prize at the 7th Broadcasting Culture Awards in 1980.
In April of 1986, the Great Arts Theatre troupe in Tōkyō adapted The Bear Storm for theatre, and this performance, both in voice and in sign language, earned ecstatic critical praise. Though I was at home in the field of theatre, I was being sought after for guidance on topics such as bear physiology, the pioneers’ way of life, and the customs of the north country. For a week I was never apart from the acting troupe. Most of them were young men and women, but they had their hearts set on this path. Being that they had all resolved to join the troupe, they were passionate and full of vigor, eager to act and eager to learn. The serious way in which they lived their lives was worthy of praise.
The play was aflame: the souls of the dead; the final confrontation between the brown bear and Ginshirō; the appearance of the pioneers, all dressed in black; the psychological portraits of the characters. It was two and a half hours long, five acts, thirteen settings. Yoshimura, who had been invited, praised the production highly: “I could be no happier that these dedicated fellows of the Great Arts Theatre have chosen my work with which to ascend the grand stage.”
Furthermore, Yoshimura congratulated Ōgawa Haruyoshi’s fulfillment of his life’s work. He published a piece in Shinchōsha’s magazine in 1985 titled, “You Can Put Down Your Gun.”