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矢羽根, and the parts of the road you cannot see
Along the exposed roads of Hokkaido there are tall poles at the edge of the asphalt with a downward-pointing arrow near the top. They are 矢羽根, and their job begins when the snow has made the road, the shoulder and the field beyond it into one white surface: the arrow tells you where the edge is, so you can keep a lane that is no longer visible. Alongside them a snow country runs a whole quiet infrastructure — 防雪柵 fences that stop drifts forming across the carriageway, road heating buried under the slopes and intersections of Sapporo, and a 除雪 fleet that works through the night so that the morning is survivable. Two local words are worth carrying. 圧雪 is packed snow, which grips better than drivers expect; ミラーバーン is what an intersection becomes when thousands of tires have polished the ice to a mirror, and it is the surface that actually hurts people. And one piece of safety advice that is not about driving at all: if you are stuck in a blizzard with the engine running, get out and clear the snow from around the exhaust. Every winter that is how somebody dies, warm and asleep in a car that is full of its own fumes.