Prayers Above the Clouds: Former Islanders Honour Their Ancestors From the Sky

Most people visit family graves on foot. For a small group of elderly Japanese, the closest they can get right now is a window seat.

On Saturday, 34 people, former residents of the Russian-held islands that Japan calls the Northern Territories and their relatives, boarded a chartered plane at Nemuro Nakashibetsu Airport in Hokkaido. The aircraft took off at around 10:45 a.m., and at roughly 11 a.m., as it flew near the islands, the passengers pressed their hands together and prayed for the ancestors buried below.

Why a plane instead of a boat

For years, former islanders could take part in exchange programmes that allowed them to travel to the islands and visit the graves of their relatives. Those programmes have been suspended since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the aerial service exists precisely because the usual route is closed. Saturday’s flight was the second of its kind; the first took place in 2020, during the pandemic. Another is planned for November 7.

The islands were seized by Soviet troops in the closing days of the Second World War and remain at the heart of a territorial dispute between Tokyo and Moscow that has kept the two countries from signing a formal peace treaty.

A shrinking generation

What makes these flights so poignant is the age of the people on board. Tomie Nishidate, 89, who grew up on Kunashiri, said that seeing the islands from above brought back memories of her hometown. Kuni Tabata, 90, from the same island, flew with her 66-year-old daughter and spoke about the school she once attended. Her daughter described the view as close and yet far away.

That phrase captures the situation well. Every year there are fewer people who actually remember life on the islands, and every year without access makes a visit on foot less likely for those who remain. The flights cannot replace standing at a grave, but they keep a ritual alive and pass a story from one generation to the next, from a mother who remembers her classroom to a daughter who now carries that memory.