Jozankei Onsen

Jozankei is a strip of large hotels along the Toyohira River, close enough to Sapporo that people come out for an afternoon bath and go home for dinner. The name comes from Misumi Jozan, a Buddhist monk who was led to the springs by Ainu guides in 1866 and spent years trying to build a bathing place here. Jozan Gensen Park, opened in 2005 for the 200th anniversary of his birth, has his statue, a free footbath open from 7:00 to 21:00 and a spring hot enough to boil eggs in. The kappa are the other local character. The story goes that a young man fishing at a deep pool in the river disappeared, and a year later told his father in a dream that he had married a kappa and was happy. The pool is now called Kappa-buchi, and kappa statues made by sculptors from Hokkaido and elsewhere stand around town. The walk to the red Futami suspension bridge, past Kappa-buchi and the Futami rocks, is the best short walk in Jozankei, and in early to mid October the slopes around it are full of maple and katsura colour. The streets themselves are not much to look at; the gorge is the point. For a bath, several hotels take day visitors, and the free footbaths cost nothing.