Torinuma Park

Furano is famous for lavender hills, but a few minutes off the flower-tour route sits Torinuma Park — a stand of old-growth forest wrapped around a spring-fed pond that, unlike every other body of water for kilometers, never freezes.

Why It’s Interesting

The name comes from the Ainu chikap-un-to, “the marsh where the birds are,” and it still earns it: over 40 bird species and small mammals like Ezo squirrels live in the surrounding primeval forest of mizunara oak, alder, and ash. The pond itself is fed by groundwater year-round, which keeps it clear enough to see straight to the bottom and warm enough that it’s the only non-freezing pond in the area — a genuine oddity in a region that spends five months under snow, and the reason wintering waterfowl crowd onto it when everything else is solid ice. On a still morning the trees reflect so cleanly off the water that locals half-jokingly compare it to Bolivia’s Uyuni salt flat.

Best Time to Visit

Genuinely good year-round: skunk cabbage in spring, fireflies at night in summer, foliage in autumn, and open water with wintering birds in deep winter. Mornings are calmest for the mirror-like reflection.

Getting There

About a 10-minute drive from JR Furano Station (a local bus also runs nearby); there’s a free parking lot at the entrance. The loop path is flat, gravel, and short enough to fit inside a couple of spare hours before continuing on — it works well as a quick forest stop on the way out of Furano toward Chitose.