TRAVEL
Kaiyo Maru Memorial Museum
Located in Esashi, Hokkaido, there are still remnants of the historical site where Hijikata Toshizō, the Vice-commander of the Shinsengumi, stationed during the Battle of Hakodate.
In late 1868, Hijikata Toshizō and the then-admiral of the Tokugawa navy Enomoto Takeaki retreated to Hakodate for regroup after defeat. As a preventive measure for enemy landing along the coast, Enomoto Takeaki strategically assigned the warship Kaiyo Maru to safeguard the coastline. The Kaiyo Maru was a warship commissioned by the shogunate in 1866, built in the Netherlands at a cost of nearly US$400,000, armed with twenty-six cannons, effectively putting the enemy's threat at sea under close monitoring. Unfortunately, on the evening of 16 November, owing to an adverse weather, the Kaiyo Maru, anchored in the offshore area, ran aground. Thus the shogunate suffered tremendously at its loss.
Located in Esashi, the Kaiyo Maru Memorial Museum was reconstructed in 1990 to the exact specifications of the original Dutch design. Inside the warship, visitors can see cannons, cannonballs, tableware, medical supplies and other items, including over 33,000 artifacts recovered from the seafloor excavation in 1975.
To get to Esashi from Hakodate Station, bus number 610 can be taken which takes about two hours to reach, alighting at the Ubagami-cho Ferry-mae bus stop.
Kaiyo Maru Memorial Museum
Address: 1-10 Ubagamicho, Esashi-cho
Operating hours: 0900 to 1700
Closed on: No closure from April to October; Mondays, the day after national holidays, and New Year holidays from November to the following March (December 31 to January 5)
Admission fee: 500 yen (adult), 250 yen (student)
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