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Shikotsu-Tōya NP., Hokkaido
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Hot spring water bubbles through gravel in Marukoma’s lake-linked natural bath, so it has no fixed depth: about 45 cm in winter, but as much as 160 cm. The inn says it reached that high in June 2000.
Lake Shikotsu’s prized “chip” (hime-masu) is a newcomer: it was introduced from Lake Akan in 1894. Now Chitose’s city fish, it may appear grilled or in other seasonal dishes at Marukoma, depending on supply.
Until a road reached Marukoma in 1967, boats were the only way to get there. Even though Lake Shikotsu is famed as Japan’s northernmost “ice-free” lake, it sometimes froze enough to stop boats from running.
Marukoma’s founders pursued reports of white steam near Mt. Eniwa after Sasaki Hatsutaro suffered neuralgia. His wife Toyo went to investigate through lakeside forest with no road around the shore; their search led to the spring in 1915.
Opened in 2023, Marukoma’s outdoor saunas use no electricity—a striking detail at an inn with no utility power lines, which generates its own electricity. The sauna project received a Japan Tourism Award in 2025.
The inn remembers hostess Yoshie for waving departing guests off from its pier. During the postwar food shortages, some devoted customers even volunteered to help find supplies for the lodge.
The name has 2 local horse stories: the inn says injured horses hauling sulfur from Mt. Eniwa were healed at the spring; a Chitose municipal-history article records another account linking “Marukoma” to early settler Etsaku Shiotani’s favorite horse.
