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Daisetsuzan NP, Hokkaido
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This is a real hot spring on a frozen lake: tea-brown mineral water is piped from shore, and when the air falls below −30°C, the contrast with the hot bath can exceed 60°C.
The ice lodge is about 80 m offshore, above roughly 50 m of water. Even when it’s −30°C outside, the igloo blocks the wind; guests sleep on an insulated bed in a sleeping bag made for extreme cold.
Kotan means “village” in Ainu, but this winter event is modern: 3 young people began building igloos here for fun in 1980; the first official Kotan opened in 1982 with just 3 igloos.
Builders make more than 10,000 blocks by mixing lake water into snow. Heavy machinery can’t work on the frozen lake, so people stack the blocks by hand; overnight, the slushy joints freeze solid.
The buildings are made from snow and lake ice, not permanent structures. When the season ends, they gradually melt back into the lake—so each year’s village is temporary in the truest sense.
At the Ice Bar, visitors can carve their own drinking glass in about 30 minutes, then use it for a drink at the counter. Hygiene rules mean the handmade ice glass stays inside the bar.
The Ice Bar’s clear decorations are cut from Lake Shikaribetsu itself. Sunlight passing through the translucent ice gives interiors a pale-blue glow, while bubbles trapped in the ice make each piece distinctive.
In 2023, builder Sue-san was 70 and had worked on the village for 41 years. He’d once led crews as its “village chief” and even helped fix a hot-spring pipe when it clogged.
Organizers have recruited volunteers since 2000; by 2021, about 35 people from Japan and overseas helped each year. Some former guests returned as builders, and some volunteers settled in Shikaoi.
