Abashiri Prison Museum
The main reason to go to Abashiri is for the sea ice during February however as that only takes an hour you will need something else to do. Once place to try out is the Abashiri Prison Museum, which if visited during the dead of winter, is a pretty sobering experience if you imagine living in the prison complex during the harsh Hokkaido winters.
| The Good | The Not-So Good |
| Atmospheric Museum with extensive facilities | Difficult to get to |
| Not many tourists (during February at least) |
Getting to the prison museum
Take a bus towards Memanbetsu Airport that starts from the Bus Terminal Station in Abashiri. Price is 240 yen, which you will pay when you get off the bus, as it usual outside of cities. Get the change ready. This bus gets you close to the prison and you have to walk from there (about 15 minutes up a hill). Get off at “Mount Tento entrance” stop. The stop before is called “Prison front” or something similar (not sure what the English translation on the bus itself will be). This is not the station you want as it is fairly far away from the prison itself. Google Maps is your friend here.
Facilities and experience
As is the case with many museums in Japan, they are packed with everything you could expect from a modern museum, just without any visitors. The Japanese tend to put museums out in the middle of nowhere, pack them with everything you could need, but don’t make it easy enough to get to. The National History Museum is another one where you wonder how much government subsidy is received each year to keep it going, considering how few visitors there are. It may be different during the summer however during February, harldy anyone was there. You certainly won’t see many westerners as most foreign tourists to Abashiri are Taiwanese
The museum contains the original buildings mostly in the state they were left in, with various mock-ups of the inmates living conditions. On a cold, Abashiri winters day you can really feel how terrible the conditions would have been. There are various other exhibits including how modern prisons in Japan function, comparing past and present. “When Japan” found it an excellent experience, especially as there were hardly any other visitors.
