Abashiri – nature, sea of Okhotsk and essential discoveries

Abashiri is a town of 35,000 inhabitants located on the east coast of Hokkaido, not far from the national parks of Shiretoko and Akan. The city’s main tourist attractions are its prison museum and ice cream, which can be seen in the Okhotsk Sea in winter.

Prison Museum

Abashiri prison was built in the 1890s to contain more than a thousand dangerous criminals. The prison gained national fame thanks to a series of popular films about Yakuza by director Ishii Teruo in the 1960s.

Following the modernization of Abashiri prison in 1984, the old buildings were moved to the open-air museum (Hakubutsukan Abashiri Kangoku), which opened its doors to the public in 1985 as an open-air museum. It should be noted that the modern prison of Abashiri is still in operation at the foot of Mount Tento.

The Abashiri Prison Museum illustrates the daily lives of prisoners and exhibits more than a dozen buildings and structures in the old prison, including the prison’s main building with its five radial wings, a courthouse, public baths and a cell of punishment.

Northern Peoples Museum

The Northern People’s Museum of Hokkaido, Hoppō Minzoku Hakubutsukan, presents the traditional culture and daily life of the peoples living in the northern and subarctic regions of the globe, including the Ainu, the First Nations of northern Canada, the Inuit, the Sami and the Siberian peoples.

Opened in 1993, the beautifully designed museum covers themes such as clothing, food, transportation, housing and the spiritual world with numerous exhibitions, illustrating the differences and many similarities between different peoples. Information in English is available.

Okhotsk-Ryuhyo Museum of Abashiri

This drifting ice museum (Ryuhyo) presents many exhibitions about ice. The Drift Ice Experience Room presents real drifting ice and creates a fantastic space with sound and lights.

In the Drift Ice Fantasy Theater, a combination of five screens shows images of floating ice filmed in 4K and wonderful images of nature and creatures living under the floating ice.

The “roof gallery of the observatory where you can feel the wind” is on the roof, where you can enjoy a 360° panoramic view of the beautiful landscape.

Derivative ice

The coast of the Sea of Okhotsk on Hokkaido is the southernmost region of the Northern Hemisphere on which the pack ice drifts. The ice usually reaches the coast of Abashiri from mid-January to the end of January and disappears again from late March to mid-April. The best time to observe the phenomenon is usually around the second half of February.

While the drifting ice can be observed along the entire coast of the sea of Okhotsk, from Wakkana i to the Shiretoko peninsula, it becomes thicker around Abashiri. Due to global warming, the amount and thickness of the ice has declined considerably since the late 1980s.

One of the best and easiest ways to see the ice is to take a Aurora tourist boat, which departs from the port of Abashiri. As the ice is not always visible from the coast, the boats go to the sea of Okhotsk, where the ice is more likely to be. Boat rides last about an hour and take place several times a day during the ryuhyo season.

In good conditions, the ice can also be seen from the coast. A popular way to do this is to take trains between the stations of Abashiri and Shiretoko-Shari. The train with retro charm Ryuhyo Norokko has panoramic windows and runs along the coast during the drifting ice season.

Abashiri and Notoro Lakes

Lake Abashiri is part of the vast Abashiri Quasi National Park and is believed to be one of the most beautiful lakes in Hokkaido. The reason why this lake is so famous is that it houses a number of residents who majestically swim on the surface.

Lake Notoro is an oval lake located west of central Abashiri. It is about 7 km east to west and about 10 km north to south, connected to the sea of Okhotsk at the north end of the lake, therefore it is a salty lake. The lake is home to the highest concentration of salicorn in Japan. Salicorn is a kind of grass growing in salt marshes that becomes red in autumn. So it is called “s sangosou” meaning “coral grass” in Japanese.

Okhotsk Ice Festival

Large and small ice sculptures and snow figures add to the fairytale during the winter in Abashiri. A wide variety of events enrich the stay. At night, the ice sculptures light up a rainbow of colorful lights and turn the area into a fantasy world; a very different view from that of the day.

If you visit the island ofHokkaido, you should definitely think about taking a trip to Abashiri, a city located in one of the northernmost regions of Japan. Abashiri has a different atmosphere and culture compared to many other places in Hokkaido. Attention, Abashiri is known for its very cold winters that led him to be used as a prison colony at the time.

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