S P O T ／ SPOT-284

Taushubetsu River Bridge (The Eyeglass Bridge)

タウシュベツ川橋梁（めがね橋）たうしゅべつがわきょうりょう めがねばし

Stranded in the middle of a man-made lake in eastern Hokkaido lies a bridge that is slowly dissolving back into the earth. Built in 1937 as part of the old national railway's Shihoro Line, the Taushubetsu River Bridge is a graceful run of eleven concrete arches, about 130 meters long. When the line was rerouted for a dam in 1955, the bridge was simply abandoned to the reservoir that rose around it — and ever since it has performed an eerie annual disappearing act. In deep winter, when the dam is drawn down, it surfaces from the frozen lakebed; by June it begins to sink; and from late summer it vanishes completely beneath the water. Locals call it the "phantom bridge." On a still, clear day its reflection completes a perfect circle on the water, giving it its other name — the "eyeglass bridge." Every freeze-thaw cycle gnaws at the concrete: an earthquake in 2003 brought down part of a sidewall, and engineers warn it could collapse entirely at any time. To stand at the lookout and watch it is to watch a human structure being patiently un-made by ice, water, and time — a ruin whose whole beauty lies in the certainty of its disappearance.