Kanpoyaku Onsen Seiryokan

Insider tip — Seiryokan at Kanpoyaku Onsen serves Noshiro City on the Yoneshiro River estuary of the Sea of Japan coast of northern Akita, where the timber-floating tradition carried prized Akita cedar from the mountain forests to coastal sawmills that made Noshiro one of Japan most important timber processing centers. The Yoneshiro River system above the city penetrates the Shirakami mountain wilderness whose primeval beech forests — stretching across 130,000 hectares — are UNESCO World Heritage listed as the largest intact virgin beech forest in East Asia.