Shinto shrineJapan · JP
Okuni Shrine
Okuni Shrine (大國神社, Ōkuni Jinja) sits quietly in the Motosarabetsu district of Nakasatsunai, a small farming village in Hokkaido's Tokachi plain. Founded in 1918 by settlers who pooled donations to raise a hall for the deity Ōkuninushi-no-Mikoto, it looks like an unassuming rural shrine—yet it is the spiritual home of a remarkable tradition: Iwami Kagura, the dramatic Shinto dance-drama carried north from Shimane Prefecture more than a century ago and now designated a Nakasatsunai Village Intangible Cultural Property. For a shrine-hopper or a culture-minded traveler, the appeal here is not grand architecture but a living connection to pioneer Hokkaido: a tiny community that recreated the rituals of a distant homeland in the cold north, and a village full of fields, art museums and gardens worth combining with the visit.