Snow country (Japan) Snow country (Japan) Snow country (雪国 "yukiguni"; also, more prosaically, 豪雪地帯 "gōsetsu chitai" ["heavy snow area"]) refers to areas in Japan characterized by heavy, long-lasting snowfalls. The rather poetic can refer to any place with heavy or deep snows and is generally understood as a reference to the Sea of Japan side of Honshū (Japan's main island) and the area encompassed by the Japanese Alps, a series of mountain ranges that make up the island's backbone. In its broadest meaning, "snow country" means the belt along the Sea of Japan from Yamaguchi (in particular, Shimane) in the south to Honshū's
Camano Island "snowbirds." The island has a total land area of 102.99 km² (39.77 sq mi), though it was larger before the Great Slide of 1825. During the Last Ice Age the island, sound and land surrounding the sound was covered by a mile thick sheet of ice. As temperatures rose the glacier receding carving the island and leaving behind deposits of glacial till. Camano Island is named for the Spanish explorer Jacinto Caamaño. The original name of the island was "Kal-lut-chin" which in the language of the indigenous Snohomish tribe means "land jutting into a bay". They used the island as