A trip to Eastern Hokkaido

If Niseko has the powder snow, what does Eastern Hokkaido have in winter? Ice-floes! Ice-whats? you are probably thinking. An Ice-floe is simply drift ice and every winter the ice-floes come down the eastern coast of Hokkaido. The best places to view this winter phenomemon are Monbetsu and Abashiri. We managed to get a special package deal for Abashiri that included one night at a hotel including meals and a ticket for the ice-breaking sightseeing boat all for 6,000yen each. This was going to be a one night two day Japanese style express holiday.

Three of us (Matt, Mako and myself) set off from Sapporo early on Sunday Morning. Five hours of driving later we were in Abashiri. We had lucked it. The weather was blue bird with a slight breeze that had pushed the ice-floes right up to the beach. If the wind is off-shore the ice-floes can be far out to sea and not that spectacular. I learnt later that the ice-floes can be fickle, some years they arrive very late, some years they stay way out to sea and if global warming predictions are true there will be no more ice-floes in the future.

Abashiri is the gateway to the World Heritage status Shiretoko National Park. Abashiri's two main tourism drawcards are the ice-floes and the Prison Museum, which by the way is a tourist trap. Our first stop was the ice-floe museum to get the low down on the floes. The museum is situated on top of a hill and is mostly a souviner shop for the endless buses of domestic tours but it does have a good viewing platform. After the museum we had some time to kill so we drove out to the beach to walk on the ice-floes. We stopped outside a big souviner complex, I stopped counting the tour buses when I got to 50. The ice-floes are a big business it seems. Helicopters were taking off for scenic flights, groups were lining up for obligatory photos, it was quite a scene. We took a few photos then headed back to the port to catch the sightseeing boat.

The ice-breaking boat trip was well worth it. We didn't get to see any seals lazing on the ice like promotional posters but it was definitely cool watching the ice being smashed up by the boat. We did a few large circles and then headed back to port. Dinner time was approaching so we headed to our hotel. The hotel was a step back to the eighties, the dinning area overlooked what once had been a swimming pool but had now been filled in and made into mini golf course with the odd plastic house plant for effect. The buffet dinner looked like some of the food had been sitting there since the eighties as well. After dinner we played some table tennis and ended the day with a soak in the onsen.

The next morning we got a quick round of mini golf in after breakfast then headed out to complete the rest of activities that Abashiri has to offer. Our hotel overlooked Lake Abashiri which freezes in winter. At night time lights are laid out on the frozen surface to resemble a giant star. During the daytime the lake offers you two choices, ice-fishing or snowmobiling. We went and had a look at the ice-fishing first. The fish everyone was catching were tiny. About 6cm long. You would need to catch at least 30 to have anything that would come close to resembling a decent meal. The fishermen we were talking to had caught about 7 fish between them, looked like they were in for a long day. We then decided to wander over to the snowmobiles. For 500yen we could do one lap of a giant oval circuit. I'd never been on a snowmobile before so I was keen. Mako to everyone's atonishment set a new course record. The guys renting out the sleds said they had never seen a female go so fast. It turned out that Mako had mistaken the accelerator for the brake and had been screaming the whole way around in sheer terror trying to stop.

We had pretty much done everything that Abashiri had to offer so we set off home stopping in at Sounkyo in the center of Hokkaido to check out the ice village they had made there. It was quite impressive but the minus 30 temperature cut the visit short and resulted in the worst cold I've had for years a few days later. Despite the cold the trip out to Eastern Hokkaido is one of the highlights of my time in Japan. The ice-floes are well worth the effort to go and see. There are many cheap packages from Sapporo ranging from the gruelling 1 day tour to the most popular one night two days tour. If you are a little more adventurous you can drive yourself there. The best time to visit is February but check on the internet first to make sure the ice-floes have arrived.