The booklet "Milsil Shihoro Book" featuring stores in the shopping street in Tokachi Shihoro Town was distributed to all Shihoro Town households. The stores introduced in the book include not only restaurants, barbershops, and beauty salons, but also unique dry cleaners, photo studios, bookstores, hardware stores, and other stores that are closely connected to the local community and full of the charm of the Shihoro shopping district.

We asked Kazumori Nozawa of Dot Doto, a general incorporated association involved in the production, and Sota Sato, an intern involved in the production, about the circumstances that led to the production!

--How did you come up with the "Mirusil Shihoro Book"?

Nozawa: Going back quite a bit, we originally had the idea of distributing store cards introducing Shihoro's restaurants and other stores at Pier 21 Shihoro, a roadside station, and the project started in 2020.

Roadside Station "Pier 21 Shihoro"

After repeated discussions, in 2020 Pier 21 Shihoro and we at Dot Doto recruited interns ( click here to see how it went), and together with the interns who applied, we started the "Shihoro Shopping Street Visualization Project". As part of the project, we interviewed stores in the shopping district and published the "Shihoro Yokottekku? Map" based on the interviews.

Originally, Shihoro had a diverse range of interesting stores, but due to the changing times, we heard more than a few people say that they had never utilized the stores in the town's shopping district. We created this booklet at the request of the Shihoro Town Chamber of Commerce and Industry with the aim of "encouraging the people of the town to use the town's stores.

Incidentally, the store cards originally conceived were intended to encourage visitors from outside to use restaurants and other stores, but the stores introduced in the "Milsil-Shihoro Book" are local bookstores, hardware stores, and other stores closely related to daily life. We tried to target readers to local residents rather than visitors from the outside.

--There are certainly many stores near where I live that I pass by all the time but have never been inside.

Ms. Nozawa: It is very difficult to enter. I thought that just knowing what kind of people work inside, what kind of products they sell, and the atmosphere of the store would make it easier to go in, so I created this booklet to provide that opportunity.

--Now we would like to talk to Mr. Sato, who participated in the project as an intern. When did you first visit Shihoro?

Sato: My first visit was from October 2020 to March 2021, when I was involved in the "Shihoro Shopping Street Visualization Project" and the "Shihoro Yokottekku? Map" project. After that, I stayed in Shihoro again from September 2021 to February 2022, and produced this booklet during my second stay.

--What was your role in the project?

Sato: I interviewed nearly 60 stores and was in charge of the text for the store cards and the articles for the guidebook. I also had the opportunity to visit the stores many times during my stay, interacting with the locals to help them understand the project itself and raise awareness of the project.

So--you were in charge of connecting the community.

Sato: Yes. I had a lot to do during my internship, such as producing booklets and helping out at the store, but I was able to experience firsthand what it means to "work and live locally" by interviewing people in Dot Doto and being close to Mr. Hotta (President of atLOCAL, which operates the roadside station "Pier 21 Shihoro"). I was able to experience firsthand what it means to work and live locally.

(In the middle is Yuki Hotta, Representative Director of atLOCAL Inc. On the right is Asayo Ujiro, another internship student like Ms. Sato)

--Mr. Sato, were you interested in "working locally" before you interned at atLOCAL?

Sato-san: Actually, I didn't have a strong interest from the beginning, but it all started when I read ".doto" and thought "I want to go to East Hokkaido! It started when I read ".doto" and thought, "I want to go to East Hokkaido! I found a job application insert in the magazine, and when I registered for it, I found information about this internship and applied for it.

--Why did you visit Doto twice?

Sato: My parents live in Eniwa City, but during my first four and a half months in Shihoro, I became more familiar with the town than I am now, and the more I learned about it, the richer I felt the town's daily scenes were becoming.

--Please tell us about any impressive things you saw during your stay in the city.

Sato: As mentioned at the beginning of this booklet, we held an event called "Shihoro Mini Shopping Street Market" at "Pier 21 Shihoro. We asked the stores to participate in the event with the concept of "gathering the shopping street at a roadside station and creating an opportunity for many people to get to know each other.

One of the participating stores, Harao Bookstore, was one of the first to participate in the event, and we initially asked them to select about 20 books for the event, but were surprised to find that they had prepared nearly 60 books. I was very impressed that we were able to work so enthusiastically together with the local people at this event.

--I have heard Mr. Hotta say that he always wants to do things "for the people of Shihoro. I felt that this event was the very embodiment of that commitment.

Sato: Mr. Hotta's goal is to make "the roadside station that is needed by the people of the town the most in Japan," and I thought I was able to take that lesson and give it shape in my own way. The content of the event was created by five interns including myself, and I think one of the interesting aspects of the event was that we came up with our own way of introducing the town.

Ms. Nozawa: The interns stayed at different times during their stay, and some of them were not present at the time of the event, but they all said, "I want to hold an event! I want to include it in the booklet!" I want to include it in the booklet. When we asked various people what they thought of the booklet, many of them said they felt the enthusiasm of the people of the town in the event shown at the beginning of the booklet.

Thank you, Mr. Nozawa and Mr. Sato!
We often seek enjoyment "outside the town" through travel and sightseeing, but we are often surprised to learn about the charms of the town in which we actually live. The "Milsil-Shihoro Book," which tells the charms of Shihoro's stores and people, will become an indispensable guidebook for every family in the town.