It had taken nearly seven hours but we made it. The first express train took us from Abashiri on Hokkaido’s far northern coast through five hours of its national park-like interior of forests and plains, or at least that’s what I think was under all the snow. Small Midwestern towns and farms occasionally appeared on the landscape and then where gone. Occasionally the limited express blew a steam whistle to scare animals off the tracks. We switched trains to a local in Sapporo and traded the pastoral scenery for a coast-hugging run down the craggy seaside and the Sea of Japan’s pale green and blue waters. We got off the grey commuter at a train platform lined with old glass lamps and headed through a station that can’t decide if its 1903 or 2019. Honestly, I barely noticed because we had finally arrived in Otaru.

Quiet today, Otaru played an important role in the development of Hokkaido. An international port through which trade from China and Russia flowed; it was also the gateway to Sapporo, the capital which it dwarfed through most of the 19^th century. Add in its bountiful fishing and you have the picture of a prosperous town in the old north.

At its peak this was the Wall Street of the North and its prosperity showed in the rows of warehouses lining the canal and its dozens of banks. Eventually Otaru went into decline and in most stories this is where things start falling apart but Otaru seems to have weathered the years well by preserving so much of its history that its historic district truly deserves the title.

Not just a few buildings here and there amid an otherwise modern town, the old warehouses still stand shoulder to shoulder on the canal which the townspeople refused to let be filled in, the banks are still clustered in city blocks and a tight row of Victorian businesses on Sakaimachi are still illuminated by gas lamp-style street lights when the sun goes down.

Former Bank of Hokkaido now trendy wine bar

The nostalgic atmosphere doesn’t feel forced. Tourism is a natural part of the economy and outsider are catered to, but it doesn’t feel fake.

While we had precise trip plans of must see places on our journey the destination here was simply Otaru itself. Of course, upon arrival we found ourselves with more options than we knew what to do with but we put off making decisions until after the romantic canal walk because trips like this need to start off right.

The canal was originally for moving goods to warehouses from larger ships, like a small-scale version of Hamburg’s Speicherstadt. Its warehouse row has mostly been repurposed to keep the buildings alive but the old stone exteriors look the same as they ever did. When we came back after dark it was illuminated by blue lights that reflected beautifully off the water. Though we weren’t alone on the waterfront, it was never crowded.

I dragged Emi down to the red brick Romankan, a former bank that had appeared in the anime and manga Golden Kamuy which is one of the buildings I’d wanted to see on our walk. It’d been converted into a handmade jewelry shop and in the back was a café decorated in Victorian antiques that would make my mother jealous. There are many nostalgic, vintage, antique and/or retro cafes in Otaru, but I had to come to this one because in the Venn diagram that is my love of Meiji era (1868-1912) buildings, decommissioned banks, coffee and anime this hits dead center. Like usual I had the house blend and Emi had tea. I recommend the blend if you enjoy your coffee black.

It was dark when we finished and what had been fascinating in the day became completely charming at night. The gas lamp-style street lights emitted a soft yellow glow giving the streets a very classic Dickensian Christmas atmosphere. Down the street from Romankan Christmas lights illuminated light posts with the shape of Christmas trees adding to that surreal feeling despite being January.

We dined at Otaru Brewery & Beer Pub in Otaru Soko Daiichi (Warehouse No. 1). On the outside it was one of the stone warehouses we saw on the canal walk. On the inside it’s a Munich beer hall with everything but lederhosen. Otaru Beer follows the Munich beer purity laws and bases their recipes on their brew master Johannes Braun’s centuries old family recipes resulting in authentic German beer being brewed fresh in Hokkaido. My favorite is their weiss, which here is nicknamed the ‘banana beer.’ It’s yellow and a little bit sweeter than the weiss beers I was used to but I liked that. If we’d come a little earlier we could have also toured the brewery, but that’s what next time is for. I tried to get Emi into sauerkraut and sausage, regular and Munich white, but sadly she wasn’t ready to go full German.

The following morning we set out for a long canal walk away from the historic district and to the Otaru Museum. It was about half an hour that breezed by as the preserved center of town doesn’t have a monopoly on century-old warehouses and buildings. Like a trail leading on either side of the canal they just continue down toward the museum. I had to split my attention between the architecture and watching my wife’s child-like skipping in the snow.

Because it was the first week in January a lot of places were closed; among them was the former Nippon Yusen KK Otaru Branch, a manor-like 1904 shipping office by a broad plaza thigh deep in snow. It’s been restored inside and out to its former glory and is a museum to the industry that brought Otaru so much success.

YKK Branch Office

Meiji-era warehouses

Passing a closed train car-turned-diner at the entrance we finally arrived at the Otaru Museum and on hand to greet us was a statue of Daniel Meloy, American consul in Sapporo. Why is there an American statue in front of the museum?

Though it was long before Meloy’s time, when the Kaitakushi, the Hokkaido colonization or development office, was stood up to develop the island they hired U.S. Agricultural Commissioner Horace Capron to advise them. (“Kaitaku” is literally “pioneering” so the exact translation is never precise and seems to shift with decades and official policy.) He and his mostly American team recommended new industries, crops, livestock and infrastructure to make Hokkaido flourish and notable Midwestern.

Among those initiatives was building the Horonai Railway, Japan’s third railway, linking the colonial capital of Sapporo to Otaru and the sea lanes which would bring much needed supplies in and coal out to markets across Japan.  As our Hokkaido trip progressed I’d become more familiar with these figures but at the time I had no idea how prominent a role Americans played in the island’s history.

The Otaru Museum this is primarily a railway museum inside with a large collection of railway artifacts related to both the trains and the men who kept them running on time. It’s situated on the site of Temiya Station, the original terminus for the Temiya Line which ran to Sapporo. The centerpiece is Shizuka, one of the few surviving Pennsylvania-built H.K. Porter steam engine in Japan. She’s a classic American Old West train from 1884 complete with a cowcatcher on the front. Shizuka, along with sister H.K. Porter engines Benkei and Yoshitsune are named for legendary samurai Minamoto no Yoshitsune, his faithful servant and his mistress. There is a legend that he faked his death and fled to Hokkaido, which is probably why they named the trains for him and his closest companions. Though all operated in Hokkaido, they are now safely preserved in museums around the country.

Behind Shizuka is a Japan Government Railways-maroon first class passenger car built in 1892. If first class got such dim lamps for lighting and just a central stove to keep its occupants warm I can only imagine how miserable riding coach was during those days. (I imagine not riding with livestock was considered part of the upgrade.)

Because we came in winter the tickets were discounted by half since only half the museum is viewable. The museum’s sizable collection of trains and train cars outside is hidden under tarps, though wading through knee deep snow I made it to the red brick roundhouse and turntable. Built in 1885, this is the oldest standing train shed in Japan and was built by a New York-educated Japanese architect in a common American style.

If we’d come in the warmer months not only would the trains have been uncovered, we may have also been able to ride a steam locomotive like Shizuka on the rail yard track!

The museum is trilingual: Japanese, English and Russian.

For lunch we went to Yabuhan. Yabuhan is a 65-year old soba restaurant built in an Edo era storehouse about two blocks away from Otaru Station. They use Hokkaido buckwheat flour in their noodles and you can have any manner of seafood, duck, tempura, or curry with it. I went for herring soba since I’d wanted to try herring soba since I saw it on… I mean, because herring is Otaru’s traditional fish. It was delicious yet probably the saltiest soba I’ve ever had thanks to the herring. It pared well with a fine Otaru Pilsner Beer.

Our last attraction is the Otaru Canal Museum, which unlike the Otaru Museum focuses on Otaru itself as a seaside community. Its collection is primarily local artifacts from the Edo and Meiji eras, though this was the hardest museum to appreciate as it’s entirely in Japanese. My favorite part was the recreated life-sized early 20^th century street with both traditional and Western-style shops on either side.

The museum is the far-right after the red brick interruption. Closest is the tourism information center.

Getting here was a little confusing because its part of a square ring of warehouses physically connected but not internally. The entrance facing main street is a tourism center and gift shop, the canal museum is on an entrance on the canal side past the bright red warehouse-turned-café with shachihoko fish on top.

As we rushed to the train station we ducked into the Niikuraya sweets shop by the station’s bus terminal for Hanazono dango. Hanazono dango, like all dango is a chewy ball of rice flour, served three to a skewer. Otaru’s dango have a thicker consistency and are chewier than most dangos, they come with a variety of toppings from the classic sweet soy sauce to anpan, sesame and macha cream so a variety pack is the best way to go. Also, the skewers were brutally used in this one scene… never mind. The dango is delicious.

Otaru is an international city, so almost everything is quad-lingual: Japanese, English, Chinese and Russian. The signage isn’t just for show; we heard all these languages spoken at some point in our 24 hours there.

There was so much more that Otaru has to offer than we could take advantage of in a day. Its historic sites just kept going, multiple museums, music boxes, and its fine glasswork are all reasons to consider spending a few days here to take it in and enjoy the nostalgic, relaxed atmosphere.

Now it’s time to head back to Sapporo for a beer so fine they named a city after it.*

ADDRESSES

Otaru Romankan
1-25 Sakaimachi, Otaru 047-0027

Otaru Brewery & Beer Pub
5-4 Minatomachi, Otaru 047-0007

Otaru City General Museum
1 Chome-3-6 Temiya, Otaru, Hokkaido 047-0041

Otaru Canal Museum
2-1-20 Ironai, Otaru 047-0031

Yabuhan
2 Chome-19-14 Inaho, Otaru 047-0032

*This is a dated Blades of Glory reference involving Boston and its cream pie.