In Sapporo, winter is not something that happens to the city. For several months, it becomes the city. Snow settles on the roads, the roofs, the bicycles left outside. It fills the spaces between things. By January, the familiar streets have changed shape.
About five meters of snow falls here in an average winter. That is more than the height of most rooms. Of course, it does not all stay where it lands. Some is cleared, some is carried away, and some melts between storms. But every morning there is more to deal with.
People learn to make room for it. They wake early to shovel their entrances. They walk through narrow paths cut into the white. Trains are delayed. Buses move slowly. Children climb the piles beside the road, which can grow taller than they are.
There is a particular kind of quiet after a heavy snowfall. Traffic sounds farther away. Footsteps become softer. The city has not stopped working, but for a little while it feels as though everything is moving more carefully.
By February, the snowbanks at the intersections can be so high that you cannot see around them. The streets seem narrower. The sky is often the same color as the ground. People continue going to work, buying groceries, meeting friends. A whole ordinary life carries on underneath the extraordinary amount of snow.
Then spring arrives, slowly. Water runs along the edges of the roads. Forgotten objects appear where the snow has been. The sidewalks widen again. By May, almost all of it is gone. For a few months the ground stays visible. And in November, the process begins again.