Melon Store

The roller doors are down. The green canopy awning above the entrance has torn along its leading edge and sags toward the footpath. The melon signage is still legible, still bright against a flat grey Hokkaido sky, which makes the closure feel recent even when it probably is not. This is a roadside direct-sales building from Yubari's melon trade. For much of the second half of the twentieth century, outlets like this one were among the few commercial operations still drawing visitors to Yubari after the last coal mine closed in 1990. The Yubari King melon, an oval-fleshed variety with a distinctive net-patterned skin and orange interior, is grown exclusively by the Yubari Agricultural Cooperative. The volcanic ash soil in Yubari's southern plains, combined with the significant day-night temperature fluctuations of the Hokkaido basin, produces conditions that cannot be replicated elsewhere. In December 2015, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries formalised that exclusivity by granting Yubari King Geographical Indication registration as Registration No. 4 under Japan's GI scheme. Product specifications require oval form, a net pattern on the skin, weight between 1.0 and 2.5 kg, and a Brix reading exceeding 10 degrees. The annual first-of-season auction remains a national media event. A pair sold for 5 million yen at the 2019 auction. But the melon trade at street level, the roadside stands and direct-sale centres that once lined the approaches into the city, is thinner now. The population that once supported those outlets has declined from a peak of around 107,972 in 1960 to approximately 5,707 as of March 2026. The infrastructure of the industry survives, but not all of it is still open. This photograph was made in 2016, part of Brett Patman's documentation of Yubari's urban fabric. The awning will not last many more winters.