This museum holds and exhibits everyday items of Northern peoples, including many Ainu folkcrafts. The resources formerly held by the Hakodate City Museum and those collected by Dr. Osamu Baba and Dr. Sakuzaemon Kodama, who were anthropologists, archaeologists, and ethnologists closely associated with Hakodate, include many objects of great value, including a collection designated as an Important Tangible Folk Cultural Property of Japan.

The museum opened in 1989, with its building repurposed from the Hakodate branch of the Bank of Japan, built in 1926. Accordingly, vestiges from earlier days can be found everywhere in the museum.

This museum is among many traditional buildings repurposed from bank buildings in the neighborhood because Hakodate served as the foremost financial district in Hokkaido, flourishing with business until Otaru came to be known as “the Wall Street of northern Japan” in the closing days of the Taisho era (the mid-20th century). It is, therefore, a great place not only for those interested in Northern peoples, but also for those keen on traditional buildings.