One of Hokkaido's 179 towns
Okoppe興部町
Dairy country on the northern Okhotsk coast
Okhotsk region · Drift ice in winter, wilderness gateways all year.
Okoppe is a dairy town whose butter and cheese have a cult following — and a rider-house in an old train car for touring cyclists.
Okoppe is a dairy town on the coast north of Monbetsu, where the Okoppe River comes down from the Nishiokoppe forests to a shore of long beaches and small fishing ports. Cows outnumber people many times over, and the town's butter and cheese have a following well beyond Hokkaido. For travelers it is a landmark on the Route 238 coastal drive, with a roadside station whose retired train cars serve as a free bunkhouse for touring cyclists and riders, and a fishing port at Saruru that lands hairy crab.
- Region
- Okhotsk (オホーツク)
- From New Chitose Airport
- ~287 km · 4.4 h summer / 5.2 h winter
- From Sapporo
- ~275 km · 4.2 h summer / 5 h winter
- Best season in Okhotsk
- Late January–March for drift ice; May–October for Shiretoko's lakes, falls and wildlife.
Okoppe at a glance
Drive estimates: straight-line × 1.35, at 65 km/h (summer) / 55 km/h (winter). How we calculate
What to see in Okoppe
Michi-no-Eki Okoppe
道の駅おこっぺ
The roadside station (Michi-no-Eki) on Route 238, with a dairy shop and two old railway carriages parked beside it that serve as a free rider house for cyclists and motorcyclists touring the coast in summer.
Saruru fishing port and coast
沙留の漁港と海岸
A small harbor at the northern end of town where hairy crab, scallops and salmon are landed, backed by a stretch of coast that gives some of the clearest views of the drift ice arriving in winter.
Dairy pastures of the Okoppe valley
興部川沿いの牧草地
Inland along the river the town is one continuous pasture, with big barns, silos and grazing herds against the forested hills. The roads through it are empty and good for slow cycling in June and July.
Getting to Okoppe
Monbetsu Airport is about 40 minutes by car. There is no railway on this coast; Nayoro station on the Soya Main Line is about an hour and a half inland via Route 239 through Nishiokoppe. Route 238 runs along the shore from Monbetsu north toward Omu, and Sapporo is roughly five hours away.
Okhotsk region: Fly into Memanbetsu Airport for Abashiri and Shiretoko's west side; drift-ice season adds special trains and buses.
When to visit Okoppe
June to August, when the pastures are green, the rider house is open and the coast road is at its best. Spring for hairy crab and autumn for salmon at Saruru. February brings drift ice to the beaches, seen from the shore rather than a ship.
What to eat in Okoppe
Butter, cheese, milk and ice cream from the town's dairies are the reason to stop, and the roadside station sells all of them. From the sea come hairy crab in spring, scallops through the year and salmon and salmon roe in autumn. Beef from the same pastures rounds it out.
Okoppe in context: the Okhotsk region
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Every winter, the Sea of Okhotsk performs one of the natural world's great spectacles on this coast: drift ice, sailing down from the north until the horizon turns white. Icebreaker cruises push through it from Abashiri and Monbetsu — an only-here experience in all of Japan.