A century ago, Otaru was Hokkaido's boomtown, and its writers walked these streets: the poet Ishikawa Takuboku, the novelist Kobayashi Takiji, and Ito Sei. This walk follows them through the old bank district, along the canal, and up to Suitengu Shrine, past ivy turning red on the warehouses. Ten stops, about 90 minutes.
●Checked Friday, October 9, 2026. The route is the Otaru Literature Museum's own "Literary walk map" (2025); the fall notes are from the Otaru Tourism Association. Hours change, so confirm before you go.
The line joins the stops in order; follow the streets between them. Tap a number for directions. Green = optional fall extension. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Start at the museum to meet the writers first. It opens at 9:30 and is closed on Mondays, so walk Tuesday to Sunday if you want to go inside (it's also closed on the weekday after a holiday, such as Wednesday, November 4).
Opened in 1978, it tells the story of the writers who lived and worked in Otaru, from Kobayashi Takiji and Ito Sei to Ishikawa Takuboku. A ¥800 ticket also covers the Otaru Art Museum in the same building. About 10 minutes on foot from JR Otaru Station; free parking for about 20 cars.
City of Otaru ↗ Map ↗↓ 1 min
A stop on the old Temiya Line, open from 1912 to 1943. The station building you see isn't the original, but some of the old track remains. It sat beside the bank district, and Takiji seems to have used it on his way to work.
↓ 5 min
Built in 1923, at the height of Otaru's boom. Kobayashi Takiji worked here for five years from 1924, on a starting salary of ¥70, and wrote in his spare time. The bank closed in 1989; after a spell as a hotel, it has been the Nitori Museum of Art since 2017.
Otaru Art Base ↗ Map ↗↓ 6 min
Set into the wall of the canal walkway: "Ore no Otaru" (My Otaru), a song by the Showa-era star Ishihara Yujiro, who spent his early childhood here. Lyrics by Sugi Norihiko, music by Gen Tetsuya.
↓ 10 min along the canal
Finished in 1924 and still standing. Hokkai Seikan's factories are the setting of Takiji's story "Kōjō Saibō" (The Factory Cell). The canal was once the center of Otaru's industry, crowded with workers, and what Takiji saw here shaped him as a proletarian writer.
Map ↗↓ 20 min back toward the station
A poem from Takuboku's collection A Handful of Sand (一握の砂), written as he left Otaru, thinking of the wife and child he left behind. It stands where his brother-in-law, the stationmaster, once lived, and where Takuboku stayed when he first arrived. Put up in 2005.
Map ↗↓ 11 min
Takuboku worked here as a reporter from the end of September 1907, so keen that he kept his own clippings and titled them "Otaru no katami" (keepsakes of Otaru). He left in December after a dispute at the paper, and left Otaru for Kushiro on January 19, 1908.
Map ↗↓ 1 min
As a student at the Otaru Higher Commercial School, Ito Sei and a friend sold soap made at the school and roses from his family's garden at a night stall on Hanazono-dori, to fund their literary magazine. They rented the room upstairs here to count the takings: about ¥2 a night. He tells the story in his autobiographical novel Portrait of a Young Poet (若い詩人の肖像).
Map ↗↓ 15 min
Takuboku rented the upstairs of a Nambu senbei (cracker) shop here, from October 2 to November 6, 1907. In his 115 days in Otaru he moved once, so this was home for only about a month.
Map ↗↓ 15 min, up the stone steps
The finish. In the shrine grounds, a Takuboku poem from A Handful of Sand looks back on his time in Otaru; it was put up in 1980. Nearby are stones for two more writers with deep Otaru ties: the poet Kawamura Bun'ichirō and the haiku poet Mitsuya Yōson. The shrine looks out over the harbor.
Walk up Koen-dori, past its ginkgo avenue, to Otaru Park. It has a Japanese garden with autumn maples, a Takuboku poem stone, and a lookout over the town and port. Weathernews has its best colors from about October 27.
HOKKAIDO LOVE! ↗ Map ↗Behind Otaru Station, a lookout over the city and Ishikari Bay, with forest trails. Beside it stands Kobayashi Takiji's literary monument, unveiled on October 9, 1965. The sculptor Hongo Shin shaped it like an open book, 4.5 m tall and 6 m wide, with Takiji's portrait and his words about his home town.
HOKKAIDO LOVE! ↗ Hongo Shin Memorial Museum ↗ Map ↗Sources: Otaru Literature Museum, "Otaru literary walk map" (Aug 2, 2025) · City of Otaru (museum hours and fees) · Otaru Tourism Association (autumn walk, Oct 1, 2026) · HOKKAIDO LOVE! (Otaru Park, Asahi Observatory) · Hongo Shin Memorial Museum of Sculpture · Weathernews (Otaru Park) · Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
