For 55 years, Anchorage and the Japanese city of Chitose have been sister cities.
To commemorate the partnership, delegates from Chitose visited Alaska this week and witnessed the formal renaming of a local park to honor their city.
Though the Anchorage Assembly signed the papers to make Chitose Park a reality, Mayor Suzanne LaFrance said current and former Sand Lake Elementary School students did the bulk of the lobbying for the name change.
“I want to recognize the students and their triumphant efforts to rename this park in celebration of our friendship,“ LaFrance said.
Sand Lake Elementary School hosts the Anchorage School District’s Japanese language immersion program. Students begin at Sand Lake before continuing the program at Mears Middle School and Dimond High School.
The renaming ceremony began at an assembly in the Sand Lake Elementary gym on Wednesday morning as students were introduced to a host of Chitose delegates and the sounds of taiko drumming filled the area. Chitose drummers from 千舞泉美 (Senbu Senbi Taiko) even led students in a bit of call and response, as group leader Mieko Tokairin struck a small bell in rhythm, garnering a matching clap from students in the gym.
After the assembly, students and city leaders from Chitose and Anchorage walked over to the newly renamed Chitose Park.
Chitose is a city of roughly 98,000 people in the northernmost island and prefecture of Japan, Hokkaido. Anchorage Assembly chair Chris Constant said the park was chosen to honor the 55 years since Chitose became Anchorage’s first sister city.
“It only made sense for us to find a park here in Anchorage to honor our first sister city,” Constant said, “and the perfect choice was the park directly connected to our Japanese immersion school at Sand Lake Elementary Park. So here we are”
Some of the students who lobbied for the name change spoke at the grand opening of the park, including 11-year-old Stella Falsey, who now attends the Japanese immersion program at Mears Middle School.
“We are grateful for all the improvements to Chitose Park that the city has made in such a short time,” Falsey said in English and Japanese. “We hope even more people in our community come to use the dock, the learning lab and the trail in this beautiful place.”
As part of the Chitose delegation, Mayor Ryūichi Yokota said he appreciated the work that went into building the park, which includes benches, a series of decorated pillars and information on nearby animals, translated into Japanese.
“I was surprised by the students’ creative imagination,” Yokota said. “So I just learned there are many kinds of plates along the pillars, and those represent insect observation and the lake, something that students came up with to represent this beautiful park. So I was very happy to see that.”
Yokota also noted that now both cities have parks honoring each other.
“In Chitose, we also have a park named after Anchorage. We call it Anchorage Park,” Yokota said. “So at the Anchorage Park, people can enjoy mini golf, and there’s many playground facilities so people can hang out and have a good time.”
Constant, who’s been to Anchorage Park in Chitose, said the park even has trees that were imported in from Anchorage. He said he hopes Chitose Park will soon have something similar.
“The city flower of Chitose is an azalea,” Constant said. “And so we’re going to work with our Parks department to improve this area with some azaleas.”
Constant thanked the local Parks and Recreation Department for cleaning away graffiti and touching up the benches at Chitose Park in recent weeks. He said a lot of the funding to fix up the park is coming from a series of bonds, and he hopes Anchorage residents will begin flocking to it.
“There’s discussions now with the Parks and Rec Department to add this to the list of rentable parks so that people can come to this beautiful place and maybe have a wedding or birthday parties and bring more people into the park, because activation is the key to healthy spaces,” Constant said.
Constant said since arriving Sunday night, the Chitose delegation has met with various Japanese organizations in town and visited Seward. They’ll also attend the Alaska State Fair before embarking on a roughly 30-hour flight back to Chitose this weekend.
Wesley Early covers Anchorage life and city politics for Alaska Public Media. Reach him at wearly@alaskapublic.org and follow him on X at @wesley_early. Read more about Wesley here.
