Ikenoyu Hot Spring

On the eastern shore of Lake Kussharo in eastern Hokkaido, mineral-rich groundwater rises naturally along the shoreline, forming an open-air pool with unobstructed views of the lake and the Kussharo Caldera mountains. The Ainu used the spring for bathing and for softening elm bark to make bast-fiber thread for weaving tunics. The spring's warm mineral water expedited a process that would have taken much longer in cold water. Today the pool is free, open around the clock, and mixed-gender, with simple changing huts alongside. A stone monument near the water commemorates the explorer Matsuura Takeshiro, who visited in 1858 and composed a tanka poem about the view.