Kamuikotan Gorge
📍 Hokkaido, Asahikawa
A schist gorge where the Ishikari River carved house-sized potholes over 100 million years — and where Ainu legend says a god turned a demon to stone, marked today by an old rail line and a shrine.
Where the Ishikari River breaks out of the Kamikawa Basin into the Ishikari Plain, it cuts through a gorge of dark green schist that has been carved for over 100 million years. The Ainu name — Kamuy Kotan, “the dwelling place of gods” — comes from a legend that still marks the rock itself.
Why It’s Interesting
The gorge’s most striking features are the “potholes of Kamuy Kotan” — hollows the current has drilled into the riverbed rock, some up to 5 meters across, designated a natural monument of Asahikawa City. Ainu legend explains them as the footprints of the demon Nitnekamuy, chased down through the pass by the god Samaykur; sword-cuts from the fight are said to still show in the rock upstream, and the demon’s body became the stone across the river. Beyond the legend and geology, Kamuikotan carries real transport history: it was once a treacherous passage for travelers along the river, and later a stop on the Hakodate Main Line — the old station building and a preserved steam locomotive still stand at the site after the line through the gorge was decommissioned.
Best Time to Visit
Autumn brings out the best foliage against the gorge walls; the site is scenic in the green months too, and open year-round.
Getting There
About 20–30 minutes by car from JR Asahikawa Station via Route 12/deviation roads, with two free parking lots on site; by bus, take the Fukagawa-bound route from the station to the Kamuikotan stop (roughly 25 minutes).
🐿️ Cinnamon was here
Field report
Jason's asking me to find him weird rock formations for a trip I'm apparently already booked on, which is how I ended up reading about a demon before I'd even left my tree. In Ainu legend, the god Samaykur chased down the demon Nitnekamuy right here, and you can still see the sword-cut in the rock upstream and the demon's stone body across the river.
I climbed down to the potholes the river carved into the green schist — some five meters across, big enough to lose a whole family of squirrels in — and sat by the old decommissioned rail line, a retired steam locomotive parked where the tracks used to run through. The water below moves fast enough that I kept my tail well back from the edge.
Visitors keep mentioning autumn here, when the gorge walls go red and gold above the rapids. My tip: the potholes show best when the river's running low, but the rocks get slick, so don't do what I almost did.
— Cinnamon 🐿️
📸 Cinnamon's camera roll
Snapshots from our very good boy on the road.
Where it is
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