Blessed with an excellent natural harbor near central Hokkaido, Otaru thrived from early on as a base for the development of Hokkaido. From the Meiji to the Taisho to early Showa eras (from the late 19th century to the 20th century), in particular, Otaru prospered as Hokkaido’s leading commercial center, with robust economic activities centered on the port, including coal shipment. As if in response to that economic robustness, Otaru saw art and culture achieve a rich and distinctive development.
This museum has collections of more than 3,000 works associated with Otaru, chiefly works by Zensaku Nakamura, a leading landscape painter in Japan, and Arinori Ichihara, who has been called “a genius of modern printmaking.”
This facility also enables visitors to enjoy distinctive arts and culture in Otaru because the building houses not only the Otaru Literary Museum, but also a citizens’ gallery (where local residents release their works) and spaces available for training programs, meetings, workshops and the like.
This hall features works by and materials about landscape painter Zensaku Nakamura, who deeply loved the scenery of Otaru and painted landscapes all over Japan.
These galleries are used for art exhibitions and other events held by local residents.
Training room and meeting room
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These rooms are used for video screenings, training programs, workshops, and other events. They are also available to local residents for training and meetings related to art and culture.
This facility enables visitors to enjoy learning about the natural history of Sapporo from 130 million years ago, as well as creatures that have inhabited what is known today as the Ishikari lowlands. It also displays a replica of a complete skeleton of the Sapporo Sea Cow, the world’s oldest large sea cow species, whose fossils were found in an 8.2 million-year-old geological formation. The model gives visitors a sense of how large the species was.
Having been ordered by the Tokugawa shogunate to guard Ezochi (today’s Hokkaido) against southern expansion by Russia, the Sendai Domain built a jinya, or manor house, in Shiraoi in 1856 as a base for defending the nation’s northern frontier. This museum introduces the dispatch of troops to Ezochi, the everyday life of feudal retainers, and the history of their exchanges with indigenous Ainu people through a wealth of pictorial and written materials. Exhibits also include articles left by Kenmotsu Miyoshi, the second head of the army.
The Kushiro Lifelong Learning Center, located on high ground in the Nusamai area overlooking the Kushiro River and Kushiro City, opened in November 1992. The third-floor art gallery gained popularity with local residents for its many excellent exhibitions. In April 2000, to make further strides, the gallery was renamed the Kushiro City Museum of Art, and it made a fresh start.
The museum has two exhibition rooms: one large and the other small. Its main activities are the hosting of special exhibitions of outstanding artworks in Japan and elsewhere and the holding of collection exhibitions primarily of the museum’s holdings. The museum also researches local artists and works associated with Kushiro, offers seminars on artworks, and engages in educational activities using the lifelong learning center’s functions, such as offering hands-on craft courses.
Facing the various needs of the 21st century, we at the museum are determined to play a part in promoting lifelong learning in pursuit of the richness and fullness of the mind by serving as a museum that is rooted in the local community and aspires to develop together with local residents.
This facility serves as the hub for the Kitahiroshima Ecomuseum, which collects and provides information on the natural splendor, history, and industry of the city based on the concept of the entire city being a roofless museum. The center collects and preserves materials regarding natural, historical, and cultural heritages in the city, engages in research, and holds exhibitions, educational programs, lectures, and other events.
The permanent exhibition area has exhibits featuring natural history, including displays on the history of the earth and geological formations and fossils found in the city. Also displayed are materials about local history that introduce three forerunners associated with the city. Models of a mammoth and its child, created with the help of many local residents, are also on display. The special exhibition area hosts two or three exhibitions annually under various themes.
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.
This facility stands next to Takuboku Sho Koen (Takuboku Mini Park) along Omori Beach on the Tsugaru Strait. It features a wide array of exhibits on the lives of the warrior Toshizo Hijikata and the poet Takuboku Ishikawa, both of whom were closely related with Hakodate.
Many exhibits on the first floor focus on the life of Toshizo Hijikata, who was the vice-commander of the Shinsengumi, a special police force organized by the Tokugawa shogunate, and who was killed in the Battle of Hakodate, and on activities of people in the last days of shogunate rule.
The second floor, where related important materials are displayed, is also equipped with a realistic, poem-composing robot of Takuboku Ishikawa and a Takuboku theater with a video on his life shown on a wide screen.
Akkeshi Town thrived on herring, salmon, and trout fishery from the Edo period (1603-1868) and saw local livelihoods supported by good catches of Pacific saury, whaling, and other relationships between local residents and the sea. Akkeshi continues to be blessed with the bounties of the sea, such as Pacific saury, oysters, salmon, trout, short-necked clams, and kelp. To showcase the close relationships between the townspeople and the sea, the Maritime Museum opened on October 1, 1988, across from the Akkeshi Town Office building. On the second floor of the museum is the easternmost planetarium in Japan, popular as a learning facility to spark children’s interest in space.
This facility collects and exhibits writings, literary magazines, manuscripts, letters, and other materials of writers associated with Otaru, including Takiji Kobayashi and Sei Ito. In addition to the permanent exhibition area, it has exhibition areas on various literary themes, a secondhand-book area, and a rest area.
