開館日
Guidance on Okhotsk Sea Ice Museum
Welcome to the Sea Ice Museum!
The Okhotsk Sea Ice Museum is the unique museum where visitors can experience and watch exhibitions as to the science of drift ice, which is a rare museum in the world. In this museum, you will see lots of secret about drift ice are displayed. Please feel the winter coldness in in the Severe Cold Experiencing Room at -20°C and touch the real drift ice.
You can download the Mini Encyclopedia of Drift Ice here. This book includes everything about drift ice in the Sea of Okhotsk, which will assist you to understand the drift ice.
GIZA: Nickname of museum derived from Japanese word “Giza-giza” which means jaggy like drift ice
Introduction of the Exhibition Room
In the Exhibition Room, there are various experiencing type exhibitions such asthe “Severe Cold Experiencing Room” where the temperature is set at -20 °C and you can look at and touch drift ice throughout the year, the “Dome Theater” which shows highly vivid, large images, and the equipments that will enable the visitors tounderstand the mechanism of drift drift ice development such as the “Frazil Ice Generation Equipment”, “Supercooling Equipment”, and “Schlieren Optical Instrument (which enables you to see the movement of salt water)”, so that you can learn about drift ice while having fun.
Major annual events
Photo exhibitions, artwork exhibition, craftwork workshop, events held during the Golden Week, Waku Waku Science School (held in July), learning through experiences, GIZA Festival (held in each season),GIZA movie party, beach combing, Wild Treck Exhibition, Kids’ Future School, creative exhibitions(in October), science lectures, and events relevant with international symposiums, etc.walk under the sea.
About Museum
The southern limit for drift ice
Every year, drift ice arrives at the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk in Hokkaido around Mombetsu and Abashiri area. This area is located at 44 degrees north. This is the southern limit for drift ice in the northernhemisphere. Since no sea ice* exists at this low degree in the southern hemisphere, the sea ice seen here is at the lowest degree throughout the world. (* “Sea ice” is used scientifically rather than “drift ice”)
Establishment of Okhotsk Sea Ice Museum
Science the Sea Ice Research Laboratory of Hokkaido University was established in 1965 (through 2004) at Mombetsu City and drift ice radars were installed at Mombetsu and other area, the International Symposium about sea ice was held every year at Mombetsu, since 1986 to present,and Mombetsu became the Mecca of the sea ice research.In this background, Okhotsk Sea Ice Museum of Hokkaido was established by Hokkaido Prefecture in 1991,where people can learn the knowledge about sea ice and the Sea of Okhotsk clearly. This is the unique museum in the world featured with the theme of sea ice.
Facilities of Museum
There are many exhjbition facilities about sea ice as follows.
Cold Experiencing Room (-20 °C): You can touch drift ice.
Ice Aquarium: Lots of fish specimen enclosed in ice
Dome Theater: you can experience to fly over drift ice.
Drift Ice development Model: Showing from frazil ice to thick ice
Clione Tank: Lots of Clione, angel of sea ice, are swimming.
Diorama of Okhotsk Sea: Showing how the drift ice comes
Aspect
Area: 2,700 square meters（㎡）
Building: Steel reinforced concrete construction. One floor under the ground (cold room), some 3 stories above the ground
Staff number: 15
History
1991: Okhotsk Sea Ice Museum of Hokkaido establishment
I st director: Seiichi Kinoshita (Hokkaido Univ. emeritus professor)
1995: Registered as “Michi no Eki” (Road Station)
2002: 2nd director: Masaaki Aota (Hokkaido Univ. emeritus professor)
2013: 3rd director: Tsuneo Nishiyama (former Tokai Univ. Sapporo school’s president)
2014: 4th director: Shuhei Takahashi (Kitami Inst. of Tech. emeritus professor)
Facilities surrounding the Okhotsk Sea Ice Museum
Okhotsk Tower
In the 1970s, major companies wishing to participate in the Sakhalin offshore oil field development project conducted various studies on sea ice, and a drift ice observation tower was constructed offshore of the museum to measure the pressure of drift ice. It was applied to towers. After that, Japanese companies did not participate in oil field development on a large scale, and the drift ice observation tower was reborn as Okhotsk Tower as a research facility and a tourist spot where you can take a walk under the drift ice.
Ice Breaker Garinko
An Archimedes’ screw type transportation vehicle which is equipped with 2 drills was developed as a transportation method upon sea ice for the purpose of oil field development, and its driving test was done upon the sea ice. This has developed into the vessel Garinko II, which is a drift ice sightseeing ice breaking ship that is capable of sailing out of port.
Currently, it is operated together with the next-generation machine “Garinko III IMERU“.
Crab scissors object
There is a gigantic crab scissors monument near the Sea Ice Museum whose size is 12m high, 6m wide, and which weighs 7 tons.This was produced for the Drift Ice Art Festival which was held by Mombetsu City in 1983. It used to float in the sea among the drift ice, but at present, it is placed on land. Other objects such as “Salmon parent and baby” and “Pyramid” were also produced, but some got sunk and some got deteriorated, and don’t exist anymore.
Admission fee
Groups Fee: Groups discount is applied to a group of 10 or more people.
Young and Senior Persons: Young persons (Junior high school students or younger than them) and elderly persons (65 or more age) are free of charge.
[Name of facility] Okhotsk Sea Ice Museum of Hokkaido, nickname: GIZA
Address: Motomombetsu 11, Mombetsu City, Hokkaido, 094-0023, Japan
Tel: (0158) 23-5400, URL: https://www.giza-ryuhyo.com
[Closed on] Mondays (open on national holidays), the following day of a national holiday,year-end and new year holiday (Dec. 29-Jan. 3)
[Open hours] 9:00- 17:00 (Open on all days during the drift ice season)
Map of area surrounding Okhotsk Sea Ice Museum
