Full-day tour from Sapporo: Okhotsk Icebreaker Cruise & Sounkyo Icefall Festival
Last updated: September 13, 2026
Hokkaido's deepest winter, delivered in one epic day from Sapporo: at Monbetsu on the Sea of Okhotsk, the crimson icebreaker GARINKO GO III IMERU grinds out through the drift ice at sunset — the hull shuddering, shattered floes rolling up along the sides — while Steller's sea eagles patrol overhead and seals loll on the ice. Around the port, the Okhotsk Tower's underwater room peers beneath the floes at clione, the tiny 'drift-ice fairies', and Seal Land tends Japan's only dedicated seal sanctuary. The night finishes at Sounkyo, where frozen waterfalls and carved ice glow under coloured lights at the gorge's famous Icefall Festival.
Itinerary
Departure
- Start point: ANA Crowne Plaza Sapporo (1F Lobby)
- Stop at: Sunagawa Service Area (Southbound)
- Stop at: Roadside Rest Area Kaori no Sato Takinoue
- Stop at: Okhotsk Tower
- Stop at: Okhotsk Tokkari Center (Seal Land)
- Stop at: Icebreaker GARINKO GO III IMERU
- Stop at: Sounkyo Ice Waterfall Festival
- Stop at: Sapporo Station North Exit
Frequently Asked Questions
No promise can be made — the floes ride wind and current, reaching Monbetsu most reliably from late January to mid-February, and the ship sails as an ice-sea cruise even when the pack stays offshore. Booking inside that window gives the best odds of the full grinding-through-ice spectacle, seals and eagles included.
Monbetsu's famous drift-ice ship in its newest generation, IMERU — an icebreaker with great Archimedean screws at the bow that chew through the frozen sea. On the sunset sailing, the low light turns the ice field gold and rose as the hull rumbles through it: the scene the tour is named for.
Every winter the gorge at Sounkyo Onsen freezes its waterfalls into standing columns, and the festival builds ice domes, tunnels and sculptures beneath the cliffs, all illuminated in shifting colours after dark. It runs from late January into mid-March, and the night cold is fierce — dress for well below freezing.
Two neighbours of the icebreaker dock, each with its own admission: the Okhotsk Tower, whose underwater observation room looks beneath the drift ice at the fish and clione of the northern sea, and the Okhotsk Tokkari Center — 'tokkari' is Ainu for seal — Japan's only facility devoted to seals. Both fit easily around the sailing time.