06 Northern Japan Japan
Drift Ice at Rausu
Eight days on the Shiretoko peninsula in the fortnight the sea freezes over — eagles, a fishing port in the ice, and a clause in the contract about what happens if it does not.
- Duration
- 8 days
- Party
- 4 to 8
- Season
- Second and third weeks of February
- From, per person
- £17,400
The route
- Memanbetsu
- Abashiri
- Utoro
- Shiretoko Pass
- Rausu
- Nakashibetsu
Every February, sea ice formed at the mouth of the Amur river drifts down the Sea of Okhotsk and piles against the north coast of Hokkaido. Shiretoko is the southernmost point in the northern hemisphere where the sea freezes like this, and for about a fortnight the port of Rausu is a fishing town surrounded by white. It does not always come. In three of the last ten winters it has arrived late, thin, or blown back out to sea within days.
The clause
We tell every party about this before they pay the planning fee, and it is written into the booking conditions in plain English: if the ice has not reached the Shiretoko coast by the seventh day before departure, you may move to next year’s departure at no cost, or travel anyway at a reduced price that Dougal will have calculated already. You may not have a full refund, because by that date we have paid for everything.
The eagles
Steller’s sea eagles winter on the peninsula in hundreds, and they are enormous — a wingspan of over two metres, a beak the colour of a traffic cone. Some Rausu boat operators throw fish on the ice to bring the birds down to the lens. We book the one operator who does not. The photographs are less dramatic. The birds are doing what they would be doing anyway.
Why it pairs with Snow Country
About a third of the people who travel on Snow Country, Slowly ask whether they can add Rausu afterwards. The dates do not allow it this year, and Miru prefers it that way: two Japanese winters back to back is a lot of snow, and a different journey entirely.
Day by day
The shape of it
Day 1
Abashiri
Land at Memanbetsu and drive to the coast. If the ice is already in, you will see it from the car.
Days 2–3
Utoro
A drift-ice walk in dry suits off the Utoro shore — you float between the floes. The Shiretoko Five Lakes on snowshoe.
Day 4
Shiretoko Pass
The pass is closed in winter, so we go round by the coast road. The longest drive of the journey, done in daylight.
Days 5–7
Rausu
Three nights in the fishing port. Dawn boats among Steller's sea eagles, a day with Yuto's family at the kelp sheds, and a morning free.
Day 8
Nakashibetsu
Out on the midday flight to Tokyo. We time this around the eagle boat, not the other way round.
What the price covers
Included
What £17,400 buys
- Seven nights in three places, including a fishing family's inn at Rausu
- Yuto Sasaki for all eight days, and a naturalist for the ice walk
- Two dawn eagle boats, not one, because the first is often cancelled
- Dry suits, snowshoes and every piece of winter kit you need
- All meals — which on this peninsula means crab, and a lot of it
Not included
And, pointedly, what it doesn't
- Flights to Memanbetsu and out of Nakashibetsu
- The icebreaker cruise from Abashiri. It is a ferry with a PA system.
- A refund if the ice does not come — but see the clause below
- Eagle-feeding photography hides, where fish are thrown to draw birds in