Finding out your campsite is closed the evening before departure is a situation more and more Hokkaido campers are experiencing each season. Higashionuma Campsite (Higashi-Ōnuma Camp) in Nanae Town has been closed since June 8, 2026, after a Ezo brown bear (Higuma) was sighted near the grounds on June 7. The closure notice was posted on the official website of the Oshima Regional Development Bureau, with no reopening date set. The site has cycled through multiple closures and partial reopenings since late May of this season alone. None of this is exceptional—it is what camping inside a national quasi-park that shares territory with brown bears actually looks like year after year. The question is whether you can rebuild your plans around that reality before you leave home.
Why Bears Keep Coming to the Onuma Area: Reading the Terrain
Higashionuma Campsite is a free, unmanaged wild camp in Nanae Town, roughly 40 kilometers northeast of Hakodate. It accommodates about 100 tents and 80 vehicles, and sits just ten minutes by car from JR Onuma-Koen Station—one of the most accessible free campsites in all of Hokkaido. Facilities include a cooking shelter, running water, and toilets, but there is no resident campground manager. That freedom is exactly what draws campers from across Japan. It also means every safety judgment on-site falls to the camper.
Onuma Quasi-National Park wraps around the volcanic flanks of Mt. Komagatake (1,131 m) and spreads across three lakes: Onuma, Konuma, and Junsainuma. The terrain combines volcanic scrubland, deciduous forest, wetlands, and farmland—a textbook Higuma habitat. Bamboo shoots, wild vegetables, and fish-rich water are all present and accessible to bears year-round. Spring through summer is when activity peaks, timed precisely when hikers and campers arrive for the season. The park's natural richness is the same reason the campsite closes.
The site has already seen multiple closures and reopenings this season starting from late May. All closure decisions are made by the Environment and Life Division of the Oshima Regional Development Bureau, and notices are posted on the bureau's official website. The pattern is not a 2026 anomaly. It is what happens when a campground and a brown bear's home range occupy the same landscape. Once you accept that as a starting premise rather than an unwelcome surprise, planning for it becomes straightforward.
Checking Closure Status Before You Leave: What, Where, and When
The process for knowing whether Higashionuma is open before you drive out is simple: check the Oshima Regional Development Bureau's official Higashionuma campsite page 48 hours before departure and again the evening before. All current closure notices are published there. You can also call the bureau's Natural Environment Section directly—contact details are on the official site. The web page is the faster option for a late-night check.
For a broader picture of Higuma activity in the area, several municipalities publish their own sighting maps online. Hokuto City and Bihoro Town, among others, have released 2026 versions of their local Higuma maps. These give a spatial sense of where bears are active near your route. Treat these as supplementary context alongside the official closure notices, not as a substitute for them. Any single source can lag behind fast-moving on-the-ground conditions.
Add a final check on the morning of departure. An overnight notice can still miss early-morning sightings that prompt a closure before noon on your travel day. This habit is useful not just at Higashionuma but at any unmanaged free campsite in Hokkaido. Build it into your pre-departure checklist the same way you check your gear—the cost is thirty seconds; the alternative is arriving to a locked gate after a two-hour drive.
When the Campsite Is Closed: Finding Alternatives and the Two-Plan Rule
When Higashionuma closes, you need a fallback already decided. Within the same Onuma area, there are staffed, reservable options within fifteen minutes by car: OHNUMA CAMPBASE (Onuma Campbase), the camping area at Green Pia Hakodate (Livmax Resort Hakodate), and YUKARA AUTO CAMP near the lake. All three are paid sites with check-in staff, which makes verifying their current closure status easier, and a staffed camp also provides a resource for real-time bear information in the area.
Widen the search radius to 50 kilometers and alternatives multiply toward Hakodate, Mori, Yakumo, and Shikabe. Search Naap or Jalan Outdoor by map to find sites in the window, and bookmark two or three as pre-approved fallbacks. For sites with full advance booking, check the cancellation policy and consider making a tentative reservation before you finalize Higashionuma as your primary. For free sites, factor in the possibility of overcrowding on top of closure risk when picking your backup.
My personal policy is the two-plan rule: Plan A is where I want to go, Plan B is confirmed and ready before I leave. This applies to weather closures, access road issues, and bear closures alike—the category of disruption does not matter. When you receive a closure notice, a confirmed Plan B turns the problem into a logistical task rather than a crisis. The frustration comes from not having decided B in advance. Decide it before you pack the car.
Bear Safety Gear for Southern Hokkaido: What I Actually Carry
Bear spray (capsaicin-based) is the first tool to talk about, not because it is complicated but because the gap between carrying it and being ready to use it is wider than most people expect. Many commercial products have an effective range of around five meters. Used outdoors without prior practice, the spray can reach the user in changing wind. My routine before any Higuma-range trip: open the canister, confirm the stream direction and approximate range in open air, then rehearse a quick draw from the hip holster several times until the motion is automatic. Five meters is a very short distance when a large animal is moving. Knowing that in your hands, not just your head, changes how you carry yourself in the field.
Bear bells prompt a lot of brand comparisons. I have tested analog and electronic models and found that the more useful question is not which bell but where to mount it and what it cannot do. In strong wind, ambient noise drowns both. Near a waterfall, forget it. The bell is an additional layer on top of maintained situational awareness—not a replacement for it. Keep scanning. Keep listening between sounds. The bell is insurance, not a guarantee.
Food management is the most effective single measure for preventing bear attraction at camp. Do not store food inside a tent. Cook away from the tent, and wash cookware thoroughly after use to remove odors before putting it away. At an unmanaged site like Higashionuma, waste removal is entirely your responsibility. The Oshima Regional Development Bureau's official page explicitly states that leaving food scraps or garbage can attract Higuma and other wildlife. Bears that learn to associate human campsites with food will return. The campsites that stay open longer are the ones where campers manage this consistently.
The Call to Leave: How I Decide to Break Camp When a Bear Is Reported Nearby
Decide your personal threshold before you arrive, not in the moment. At an unmanaged free campsite, no one will tell you to leave—the decision is yours. My threshold runs in two stages. First, I check the location and distance of the reported sighting. A single sighting two or more kilometers away in the mountains gets monitored. A sighting within one kilometer, or any report from earlier that morning, moves the decision into active consideration for pulling out.
Second, I verify the source. If the Oshima Regional Development Bureau posts a closure notice, that is my signal to start packing—no further deliberation. Social media posts saying 'I think I saw something' do not constitute action-level information on their own. I prioritize municipal official statements and reports confirmed by the managing authority. Sharing information with other campers nearby is useful, but I use their input to check my own assessment rather than defer to group consensus.
When you decide to leave, move deliberately and thoroughly. The priority during a fast breakdown is ensuring that food and all waste leave with you—nothing gets left behind. Your pre-confirmed Plan B site handles the 'where to go next' question. Leaving is not a failure. It is exactly what having a backup plan is for. The readiness to move when conditions change is the practical core of bear-country judgment, and it works only when the backup is already in place before anything goes wrong.