Hokkaido's Dark History | Abashiri Prison, Built by Convicts at the Cost of Their Lives

By Nihongo to Japan · Updated May 27, 2026

In the coldest corner of Hokkaido stands a prison built with the blood and sweat of convicts. Walking in during winter makes you truly feel the weight of the phrase 'once you're inside, it's all over.'

That winter, I walked into Abashiri wearing my thickest down jacket — and still felt cold to the bone.

Then I stood in front of the bathhouse exhibit: wax figures recreating Meiji-era prisoners bathing. Wooden plank ceiling. No insulation. The freezing outdoors right on the other side of a thin wall.

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A thought struck me: these men wore thin prison uniforms, lived in cells with no heating, and had to carve roads through winters even harsher than today.

'Once you're in, it's all over.' Here, those words have real weight.

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A Road Built with Lives

In 1891, the Meiji government ordered the construction of the Central Road from Asahikawa to Abashiri — 228 kilometers in 8 months. The workforce: over a thousand convicts.

No machinery. Insufficient food. No medical care. Those who collapsed were often buried right where they fell — beneath the very road they were building.

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Their Words, Preserved

The museum holds written records left by the convicts. One wrote about rice fields back home. Another about wanting to see his parents. One simply noted how many fingers he'd frostbitten today.

The shock doesn't come from anything dramatic. It comes from how ordinary these words are — so specific, so human, that for a moment you forget they were prisoners and see only people.

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Two Legendary Escapes

Abashiri is also famous for two almost cinematic escape stories.

First: Shirasawa Yoshie, Japan's most prolific escapee. In 1942, while handcuffed, he allegedly used the acidity of miso soup to slowly corrode the metal, then crawled out through a ventilation shaft. No tools — just time and patience.

Second: four men escaping together in the dead of winter, chained wrist-to-wrist.

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After walking the entire grounds, I stood at the entrance gate. Four characters: 網走監獄. I stood there a while. Didn't take a photo.

Abashiri Prison Museum is an open-air museum preserving prison buildings from the Meiji to Showa eras. Budget 2 to 3 hours. Winter snow makes the bleakness feel even more real.

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