Cape Kamui was closed to women for more than two centuries. The 1855 ban, rooted in the legend of Charenka—a chieftain's daughter who threw herself from the cliffs after her lover, a Kyoto merchant, sailed away—was lifted only in 1855 when Meiji surveyors required access to chart Hokkaido's northwestern coast. The promontory's Ainu name, Kamuy-kotan, translates as "place where the gods reside," and the cape's isolation preserved both its spiritual significance and its ecology long after mainland Hokkaido was logged and farmed. Today Cape Kamui anchors the Shakotan Peninsula, a narrow ridge of Cretaceous andesite that defines the western edge of Ishikari Bay. The 300-metre walking trail from the car park to the observation platform was completed in 1996, replacing a wooden ladder route that required ropes in high wind. The path climbs 80 metres through dwarf pine and wild rosa rugosa, then descends across exposed ridgeline to the tip, where a stone monument marks the point at which the Tsushima Current meets the colder Oyashio flow. On clear days the view extends 50 kilometres north to Yoichi and south to the Furubira coast. The peninsula's water, drawn from subsurface basalt aquifers, registers 7.2 on the pH scale and carries trace magnesium from the volcanic substrate. This minerality supports the kelp forests that line the subtidal zone and the uni—sea urchin—harvested each June by Shakotan's 140 licensed divers. The Blue Cave, a wave-cut chamber 12 kilometres south of Cape Kamui, reflects cyan light through its submerged entrance when the tide drops below 1.8 metres. Cape Kamui tour from Sapporo itineraries typically pair the cape with Otaru Canal, a 1923 concrete waterway that served as the city's coal transshipment hub until containerisation rendered it obsolete in 1986. The warehouse district along the canal's northern quay now houses glassworks and music-box galleries, and most tours include a stop at the Nikka Yoichi Distillery, founded in 1934 by Masataka Taketsuru after his apprenticeship in Scotland. The route from Sapporo follows National Route 5 north through Otaru, then turns west onto Prefectural Road 913, a two-lane coast road that winds 40 kilometres to the cape's car park. The drive takes 2.5 hours each way, and departures from Sapporo begin at 08:00 to allow for the 40-minute round-trip walk before the gate closes at 18:00.