In the aftermath of World War II, Japan was a nation in recovery, and travel remained limited. As a young man, Moriyama encountered the names of Hokkaido, the northernmost area of Japan, in schoolbooks and magazines.

After his first trips to Hokkaido in the early 1960s, Moriyama photographed the region obsessively, particularly in 1978, and continued to return repeatedly until 2010. Following the first two volumes published in 2009, this book concludes the Hokkaido series. Thirty years after his last visit, Moriyama returned to photograph the streets of Hokkaido. Originally shot in color with modern digital cameras, the images were later converted to monochrome.