In the late 1860’s, Japan’s new Meiji government decided that Hakodate was less than ideal as the capital of Hokkaido, and began looking for a more central and defensible location. Stakes were high, as the government had decided to make the colonization and development of the northern island a centr...
Despite having spent a mere eight months in Japan, William Clark cast a very long shadow. A civil war hero, Massachusetts senator, and the third president of Massachusetts Agricultural College (now the University of Massachusetts at Amherst), Clark was invited to serve as vice president of Sapporo...
The 65 kilometer long Shiretoko peninsula, in the northeast of Hokkaido, is one of Japan’s most pristine wildernesses. Much of the peninsula, a narrow strip of land with a string of volcanoes forming its spine, is inaccessible except by foot, creating a haven for an abundance of wildlife including a...
14 kilometers east of Sapporo’s downtown, the Historical Village of Hokkaido is one of the city’s most interesting attractions. The village preserves about 60 stone and wooden buildings from the Hokkaido’s early days, scattered across 133 acres. And these aren’t just small cabins and a few post offi...
This was Japan’s second national park, and it’s easy to see why it received such recognition. A geological marvel, the park contains no less than 22 volcanoes, as well as three caldera or crater lakes, each of which is unique.
The most visited lake is Akan-ko. Akan-ko is famous for the fuzzy gre...
Beer Garden or Biergarten? No one seems to be able to make up their mind, but don’t worry about it too much. The important thing is the place itself, the very epicenter of Japan’s truly massive beer culture. In 1876 Seibei Nakagawa, recently returned from studying the brewer’s art in Germany, was ...
About 18 kilometers east of Toyako, Hokkaido’s most celebrated onsen resort has it all. Mountain scenery, fantastic hot spring baths, and a close-up look at the geothermal forces that make the hot springs possible.
Jigoku Dani, which means Hell Valley, is a name you’ll find at several onsens thro...
Like Akan ko to the north, Toya ko is a beautiful caldera lake, nearly circular and about ten kilometers across. The lake is graced with four wooded islands, accessible by boat from the hot springs resort town of Toya Ko Onsen. Both the lake and the town are located within the Shikotsu-Toya National...
Like so many places in Hokkaido, Japan’s fifth largest city takes its name from the Ainu language. The word Sapporo is the Japanese appropriation of an Ainu place name meaning “large river running through a plain.” For many visitors, expecting a sleepy city far from the heart of things, Sapporo is a...
The Sapporo Okurayama Ski Jump was used as the Large Hill event stage in the 1972 Sapporo Winter Olympics. There had been a ski jump here since 1931, when a smaller facility was built with help from Crown Prince Yasuhito, the younger brother of Emperor Hirohito. For the Olympics, the ski jump was en...
The largest city in southern Hokkaido, Hakodate also boasts some of the island’s most colorful history.
The site of early Japanese trading outposts, Ainu rebellions, and the short-lived, mostly forgotten breakaway Republic of Ezo, today Hakodate is both an important port city as well as the gatew...
Similar in some ways to the Basques of Spain, Japan’s Ainu people are an indigenous people of obscure origin, with a unique culture and a language apparently unrelated to any other, who have been pushed to the fringes of their ancestral territory by a dominant culture that has not always been especi...
It’s almost unbelievable how obsessive ramen fans can be about their favorite bowls of noodles. Up and down the length of Japan, various regional versions of ramen spawn fiercely partisan factions, and for at least thirty years Sapporo ramen has been one of the heavy hitters. But what’s the differen...
