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ABASHIRI |
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The dead of winter is the best time to visit the compact fishing
port of ABASHIRI , 350km from Sapporo, bordered by a couple of pretty
lakes and overlooked by Mount Tento-zan, as this is when snow covers the
less appealing modern parts of the town, whooper swans fly in to winter
at Lake Tofutsu a few kilometres east of the harbour, and drift ice (called
ryuhyo in Japanese) floats across the Sea of Okhotsk. By February the
sea has frozen over in a remarkable sheet of blue-white ice that
stretches as far as the eye can see. The ideal way to witness this
astonishing phenomenon is to hop aboard the Aurora , an ice-breaking
sightseeing boat , for a one-hour tour (Jan-April daily; ¥3000), which
departs at least four times a day, depending on the weather. The boat
cracks through the ice sheets, throwing up huge chunks, some over 1m
thick, and during the journey you may well spot seals and eagles
lounging on the floating white slabs.
An excellent vantage point from which to take in the full vista of the
ice flows is the summit of Tento-zan, directly behind the train station,
where you'll also find several enjoyable museums. For a taste of the
extremes of winter in Abashiri, head for the modern and informative
Okhotsk Ryuhyo Museum (daily: April-Oct 8am-6pm; Jan-March, Nov & Dec
9am-4.30pm; ¥500), where you can touch huge lumps of ice in a room where
the temperature is kept at minus 15°C and coats are provided for warmth.
A panoramic film of the drift ice is also screened regularly throughout
the day. While you're up here, don't miss the Hokkaido Museum of
Northern Peoples (daily 9.30am-4.30pm; ¥200), a five-minute walk
downhill from the ice museum, which has contemporary displays on the
native peoples of northern Eurasia and America, prompting comparisons
between the different cultures. A colour-coded chart at the start of the
exhibition will help you identify which artefacts belong to the
different races; look out for the Inuit cagoules made of seal intestines.
Most Japanese associate Abashiri with its maximum-security prison,
featured in a popular series of jail drama films called Abashiri
Bangaichi . The town's current prison no longer houses such high-grade
criminals or political undesirables, and the original nineteenth-century
penitentiary has been relocated to the foot of Tento-zan and transformed
into the jolly Abashiri Prison Museum (daily: April-Oct 8am-6pm, Jan-March,
Nov & Dec 9am-5pm; ¥1050). This large, open-air site features waxworks
of various detainees (look out for the tatooed yakuza in the bathhouse,
and Shiratori Yoshie, a famous escapee, crawling across the rafters in
the cell block), and is popular with Japanese tour groups. A regular bus
runs a circular course from Abashiri Station up Tento-zan to the museums
on the summit, stopping first at the prison museum on the way up.
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