Snow Canyon Roadway Image

This story was first published on January 7, 2014

Outline

Caption on a circulating image depicting a roadway at the bottom of a deep snow canyon suggests that the picture was taken in Canada. 

Brief Analysis

The image is genuine, but it was taken in Japan, not Canada. Astute observers will notice that the vehicles are driving on the left side of the road, not the right as they would in Canada. The road is known as the Yuki-no-Otani snow canyon and is located in Japan’s Toyama prefecture. The snow canyon has become a tourist attraction in its own right.

Example

Detailed Analysis

This image, which depicts a roadway at the bottom of a deep snow canyon, has circulating via social media for several years. The image includes the text “Only in Canada”, thereby implying that the snow canyon roadway is in Canada.

The photograph is genuine, but it was not taken in Canada. In fact, the snow canyon roadway featured in the photograph is located in Japan’s Toyama prefecture. 

The Alpine Route is a spectacular scenic passage over the Japanese Alps connecting Nagano Prefecture’s Omachi with Toyama Prefecture and the Sea of Japan. This is an area of immense snowfall, and when the road opens in mid-May, it is surrounded on both sides by walls of snow 10 meters tall. Special hybrid busses carry amazed passengers from the Toyama side to Murodo, which is the starting point to climb the peak of Mount Tateyama, one of Japan’s Three Sacred Mountains. 

Many more images of the snow canyon can be found on a number of travel websites.

The following YouTube video shows a snow canyon roadway from inside a bus:

More observant recipients will likely have quickly noticed that the vehicles in the picture are driving on the left side of the road rather than on the right as they would be if the snow canyon was really in Canada.