Visiting the Upopoy National Ainu Museum and Park: 2 Hours of Indigenous Fun

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Long story short, while in Tokyo I found an Ainu Restaurant, Harukor Ainu Restaurant, and the staff were all SO lovely and really encouraged me to visit Hokkaido when I had the chance. So of course, on my next trip to Japan, I took a 10 day road trip around the beautiful island of Hokkaido and knew I had to center my trip around the local Indigenous culture. I found the Upopoy National Ainu Museum during my initial planning of the trip, but couldn’t find much information online – in English – about the experience.

So that’s what I’m here for with this blog post!

If you’ll be visiting Hokkaido, Japan then I strongly recommend you also look into learning more about Ainu culture. Hokkaido’s original name was Ainu Moshiri, which means ‘the land of the Ainu.’ Like many Indigenous peoples living in occupied lands, Ainu culture was actually legally prohibited until 1997. In 2008, Japan’s parliament formally recognized the Ainu as an Indigenous people of Japan for the first time.

But it wasn’t until 2019, and the passing of the Ainu Policy Promotion Act, when Japan officially recognized the Ainu as Indigenous people in national law, banned discrimination against them, and provided state funding for cultural tourism and community development.

AND GIRL LEMME TELL YOU THEY JUMPED ON THAT!!! The Upopoy National Ainu Museum opened to the public in 2020, so it’s still a relatively new museum and the first of its kind and magnitude. Like, y’all, it’s a huge progression in Indigenous rights in Japan.

Throughout Hokkaido, there are various ways to learn Ainu history and culture, but if you’re short on time, then definitely make sure it’s the Upopoy National Ainu Museum!

Or if you’re REALLY short on time, you can watch the short reel I made on Instagram. Otherwise, keep on reading!

How to Get There

By land mass, Hokkaido makes up about 20% of Japan and is the northernmost island of the country. If you’re flying in from another part of Japan (the fastest option), you’ll catch a flight to New Chitose Airport (CTS), the main airport on Hokkaido. From the airport, the Upopoy National Ainu Museum is about a 40 minute drive, 1h45m by train (get off at Shiraoi Station), and somewhere in between if you do a train/bus combo (still get off at Shiraoi Station).

So it’s fairly accessible even if you aren’t renting a car, though a car makes things much easier in Hokkaido. I visited during my Hokkaido road trip, so we had a car and even driving in winter the roads were very easy to navigate and kept clear. I will recommend getting a toll pass as it makes driving around the island easier, but we booked our rental late and the passes were already all booked.

From the Sapporo, the Upopoy National Ainu Museum is about a 1h15m drive and 1h30m train ride. And if you end up taking the train up to Hokkaido, you’ll end up in Hakodate and both the drive and train will take about 3 hours.

If you are driving, parking is free, but they stop entrance 1 hour before closing.

Logistics

The hours are pretty standard, though one less hour during the winter season. The last entry to Upopoy is one hour before closing (including the parking lot) and the last entry to the museum potion of the site is 30 minutes before closing.

The fee for adults is pretty standard, while high school students pay 600 yen. Junior high school students and under are free, though if the child is not a Japanese school student…I’m not quite sure how they would verify or if they would ask for proof. Probably just by general appearance and honor system.

The museum also has some accessibility features in place. Complimentary wheelchairs and strollers are available to rent and voice-to-text apps can be used in all facilities. Sign language interpreting (using a tablet) is available at the information desk in the Entrance Center. (This service is only in Japanese).

In the museum, signs are in both Japanese and English, though they also have an audio guide device (500 yen per device) that gives a walkthru explanation of the museum portion in Ainu, Japanese, English, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Thai. There is also an app version that essentially does the same thing available in the same languages – though not sure if the Chinese is Mandarin or Cantonese.

They also have sound to vibration devices. For the activity portion, they have both Japanese and English sessions, but if your primary language is something else, they’re very patient for those using a translation app.

Prayer rooms are available for religious or spiritual practices such as prayer or meditation.

Food

There are also a few onsite restaurants and food spots at the Ainu Museum, so I’ll quickly cover them here. Just note that the last order for all of them, except the sweets cafe, is 1 hour before closing.

The first and the one I went to is Umi Sora no Haru (チセのある個室居酒屋 海空のハル) which specializes in Ainu cuisine (ohaw) made by a huci (elder woman), daily rotating dishes made with wild game and ingredients native to the island.

We ordered a sampler plate of wild game from Hokkaido – I don’t quite remember what it was…but it wasn’t bear or horse. But really fun and We also ordered these like sausage sandwiches–which were delicious– and a small soup that absolutely stole the show. I forgot to take a picture of the soup itself, but it’s in the little dinosaur egg looking bowl.

Okay, and now for the other foods:

• Food Court Kitchen poro: a casual food court with takeout options
• Café RIMSE: run by the Hope Social Welfare Corporation based in Shiraoi, this is a very cozy cafe serving Japanese classics with a Hokkaido twist. It is quite small though (10 seats) so I’d recommend going earlier here
• sweets café NANAKAMADO IRENKA: it’s a snacks and pastry shop with coffee as well. I ended up getting a soft serve on the way out (you NEED Hokkaido soft serve in your life)

My Experience

We arrived at the airport in the early afternoon, so by the time we arrived to Upopoy National Ainu Museum, it was about 2:00pm. Since we visited in the winter, we were very short on time and had to make the most of it!

We headed straight to the Umi Sora no Haru restaurant since we didn’t want to get distracted and miss out on eating. Plus, we just came from the airport and were starving. After food, it actually began to snow a bit, so we went inside to do the museum portion.

Videos are not allowed in the museum portion, but you are free to take pictures as you move through the sections. I particularly enjoyed learning about Hokkaido (or rather Ainu Moshiri) pre-colonization and hearing about what Ainu life was like then. It covered daily life, religion/spirituality/beliefs, festivals and seasonal traditions, and family dynamics and societal expectations. All super interesting and made me, once again, remember why historical fiction is my favorite corner of genre fiction.

Part of learning more about culture included songs sang and performed so you could also hear the language and music, which is such an important yet underrated portion of culture. If you are deaf or HOH, they do have vibration devices so you can feel the music. If I had more time at the Ainu Museum, I definitely could’ve stayed here all day. Still, I had to stay through two songs just to enjoy.

It doesn’t hold any punches as the museum moves into Japanese colonization, Japan-Russia relations, and the disenfranchisement of the Ainu people. I really appreciated the honest history with no sugar coating. Don’t get me wrong, Japan is one of my favorite countries, but a lotttt of its war crimes and dark past (and concerning issues in the present day) are either glossed over or forgotten entirely.

There are also interactive portions with games and touch-screens, so I think children would also be entertained throughout this part of the Ainu Museum. It’s not too big, but if you’re a detailed museum reader and fully immerse yourself, I’d say it would take about an hour.

The Ainu Museum has its own museum shop, and there is also a souvenir shop towards the exit.

Now the portion where you’ll likely spend the most time is the “park” part of the Ainu Museum. There are multiple activities going throughout the museum park and I highly recommend you try to experience as many as possible! They do happen on a set schedule, so naturally the earlier you arrive, the more you are able to do during your visit.

A portion of the park is built as a traditional Ainu village, which is really cool and fun to walk through. Some of the buildings are just for the atmosphere (though I’m sure the staff probably use them for things) while other buildings are set up for visitor experiences, which can last anywhere between 10-30 minutes each.

The first experience I did was watching an Ainu song performance, which was located in the traditional buildings. The performances happened every 1-2 hours and lasted about 15 minutes. In between those times, there was also an oral literature performance offered.

Anyways, when I rolled up it was the song performance starting soon. There’s a section to take your shoes off and then we sat around the stage. Since it was winter, they had a traditional “fire pit” which helped set the scene but also was functional in keeping us warm.

They performed a song using instruments as well as a singing and dancing song, which was such a fun experience to witness. After, an English speaking staff member explained some of the more detailed parts of what we watched as well as answered any questions we had. The staff were all very knowledgeable, even the ones who weren’t part of the Ainu community by heritage themselves, which is a great asset to the Ainu Museum.

Unfortunately it was getting later in the day and many of the experiences have their last time slots around 4pm/1600, so I only had time for two other experiences. One was a VR experience that took you through the POV of three animals that are integral to Ainu culture. The second was an archery experience that was honestly probably my favorite even though it was the shortest haha.

I LOVE ARCHERY OKAY?!?

These were both located in the more modern buildings. We walked through a few buildings that had exhibitions, and still really interesting even though we missed the experiences held there. Close to closing time, we stopped by the other souvenir shop where they had the usual merch like stickers and magnets and t-shirts (I got one haha) as well as functional souvenirs like Hokkaido food staples, some of the traditional Ainu instruments, and some local artisan items.

Conclusion: Ainu Museum

Overall, I had such a fantastic time at the Upopoy National Ainu Museum! The only thing I wish I could have changed was being able to arrive earlier so I could have more time to explore and do more activities.

Both the museum and park portions are so well done. Informative without feeling bogged down, and the layout makes it easy to customize your experience. If you’re in the area, I strongly recommend you add this one to your itinerary! The Upopoy National Ainu Museum was easily my favorite museum I visited during this trip, yes including the Sapporo Beer Museum.

The next stop on my Hokkaido road trip was the town of Norboribetsu, specifically for the Noboribetsu Naked Man Festival happening the very next day. So be sure to read my blog post on that if you’d like to see that very unique festival hahah.

Have you visited? Would you want to? Let me know in the comments below!

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