Tobetsu Trappist Monastery

The Tobetsu Trappist Monastery (officially Our Lady of the Lighthouse) was established in 1896 and was the first Trappist (Cistercian) monastery in Japan. The monks live a cloistered life of prayer, study and farm work, and the dairy products they began making here — butter, butter candy and cookies — are sold across Hokkaido. The interior cloister is closed to general visitors (men may apply in advance for a guided tour; the enclosure is not open to women), but everyone can walk the long approach lined with poplars and cedars, visit the Lourdes grotto and Mary statue on the slope behind, view the brick gate and church exterior, and buy the monastery's products at the shop near the entrance. It looks across Hakodate Bay toward the Trappistine convent on the city side.