Former Hokutan Yubari Coal Mine

The Former Hokutan Yubari Coal Mine

The Former Hokutan Yubari Coal Mine (旧北炭夕張炭鉱) is the group of remains of the Yubari mines of the Hokkaido Colliery and Steamship Company (Hokutan) in Takamatsu and Shako, Yubari, Hokkaido; seven structures, from two Tenryu Pit portals of 1900 to the spoil line of 1951, were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on October 18, 2006 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Tenryu Pit Portals and the Mock Tunnel

The man-car and materials incline portals of the Tenryu Pit, both of 1900, are brick remains of the No. 2 district, one of the most productive of the Hokutan Yubari mines. The man-car portal has a pointed stone keystone and wings; the materials portal carries a tablet carved Tenryu Pit (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

To the east, the mock tunnel is a 180-metre brick-arched passage made from part of a Tenryu side tunnel for visitors and the training of miners, partly reinforced with old rails (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Railway and the Spoil Line

The Takamatsu Overpass of 1936 is an open-spandrel concrete arch over the old mine railway, its deck sloping to join ground of different heights. The Takamatsu spoil line of 1951 carried waste rock to the largest spoil heap in Yubari; its seven-arch bridge, the Skip Tunnel, named after iron mine cars called skips, and the west portal of the Belt Tunnel, which held a conveyor, survive (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Each structure is described on its own page.

Visiting

The owner is not listed in the Agency record. The mock tunnel and Tenryu portals lie in the grounds of the Yubari Coal Mine Museum; its official site (checked November 2026) says a Tenryu pit portal survives at the exit of the mock tunnel. The mock tunnel reopened in April 2025 after a fire in April 2019 (Hokkaido Shimbun, April 30, 2025). The museum is closed for winter from November 4, 2026 to late April 2027; the Hokkaido Tourism Organization gives hours of 10:00 to 17:00 (April to September) and 10:00 to 16:00 (from October), closed on Tuesdays, with a fee. No official information was found on visiting the overpass or the spoil line structures.