We began this year with a trip to a place I’d never thought my sub-tropical wife would willingly visit in the dead of winter: Hokkaido.

I feel colder just looking at it.

Hokkaido is Japan’s northernmost main island; its last domestic frontier. Previously known as Ezo, Japan claimed the island for centuries but it wasn’t until the early 1870s that pioneers, willing and unwilling, were sent northward to settle and politely remind the Russians to stay out. Like the American West it was a wilderness rich in natural resources and unique possibilities, and sparsely populated by a native people who would be marginalized as progress advanced.

Within a few decades industries that existed nowhere else in Japan would be established, railroads would move coal to prosperous port cities that traded with Japanese and foreigners alike and communities would be seeded throughout the island. It would look remarkably like the American Midwest in more ways than one, though it was neither fully Japanese, Ainu or foreigner or even old Ezo, but uniquely Hokkaido.

Former Hokkaido Government Office -Sapporo

Our trip was based on visiting traces of this old Hokkaido, though I wouldn’t have been aware of it if it wasn’t for a television show. Golden Kamuy is a half-Western, half-Ainu cooking show that takes place in turn of the century Hokkaido. The story is fiction but draws very heavily on Hokkaido and Japanese history; every building creator Satoru Noda drew is a real place and is still standing. This made me aware of a whole plethora of travel possibilities to see Meiji (1868-1912) and Taisho (1912-1926) era sites.

Hokkaido’s current ambassadors to the world: An Ainu kid and a poop eater.

This was our itinerary:

Jan. 1 Flight to New Chitose Airport (Sapporo) and limited express to Abashiri

Jan. 2 Abashiri Prison Museum
Abashiri Prison was established in 1890 so that prisoners could be used in building the northern highway system. The preserved old prison mostly dates from 1912 but is a copy of the earlier prison.

Abashiri: Come for the dreaded prison, stay for the naked man in the rafters.

Jan. 3 Otaru ‘Wall Street of the North’ historic district
Otaru was a major transportation hub in the late 1800s, its preserved downtown has blocks of preserved warehouses, banks and businesses from 1890-1930s.

Romantic Otaru Canal

Jan. 4 Otaru Museum, Otaru Canal Museum, Sapporo Beer Museum
Sapporo Beer was established in 1876 and its history is entwined with the development of Hokkaido; the Beer Museum is in an 1890 sugar factory turned brewery.

Tasting history at the Sapporo Beer Museum!

Jan. 5 Asahikawa Hokuchin Museum, Kawamura Kaneto Ainu Museum
Hokuchin was the Imperial Japanese Army 7^th Division and this Japan Ground Self-Defense Force museum tells their story from the farmer-soldiers of the 1870s to the final battles of World War II. Ainu are the native people of Hokkaido and this museum was founded in 1916 by Asahikawa-based Ainu concerned that their way of life would be forgotten.

Like I’d travel all this way and not find a war museum.

Jan. 6 Kaitaku no Mura (Historic Village of Hokkaido)
An open-air architectural museum like Meiji-mura which creates a frontier town and outlying farms with more than 50 original buildings relocated here for preservation.

Let’s party like its 1899!

Jan. 7 Sapporo Akarenga Old Government Building, Hoheikan
The Hokkaido government’s red brick 1888 office and the 1881 grand hotel which three emperors have stayed at.

Hoheikan is a hotel fit for an imperial stay or tourist tea time.

Jan. 8 Sapporo Clock Tower; Return flight
This functioning 1878 clock tower saw Sapporo grow from a frontier town to the city it is today.

Tokeidai is majestic and you know it. Not like Harimayabashi.

The reason Emi was willing to take me to Hokkaido during this time was because it was cheap. Plane tickets cost less on New Year’s Day and while they may rise the following day, a week out the prices dropped again. Holiday closures were also a factor in how we moved, which accounts for why we immediately headed for Abashiri and the bizarre ping-ponging around between Otaru, Sapporo and Asahikawa. We had to work around what was open and when. Abashiri re-opened immediately after New Year’s Day, the Hokuchin Museum reopened the first weekend after, as did Kaitaku no Mura.

This Meiji era travel plan isn’t wholly original but was inspired by the trip Kamuy Central took in December 2017 to see most of the same places. He was supportive of my trip and I appreciate the work he put into his and the advice he gave when I needed it.

Finally, in the historic explanations there will be some redundancy story to story, especially involving the Kaitakushi. This will be about a paragraph worth of explanation so that new readers can jump in and understand what’s being talked about without having to stop and go back to a previous article. I promise to keep this to a minimum.

“Go North, Young Man.”
-(Never Said) by Dr. Clark