Day 15: Museum day

5 km and 30 m of climbing

The morning was occupied by doing some research as preparation for an appointment upcoming Friday. At noon I packed my tent and moved from the camp site to the city center of Tromso. Where I will stay one night in a small apartment type of hotel room.

In the afternoon I went for a walk along some museums in Tromso

Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum

This museum is a place where local artists could exhibit their work. I gave it a shot in the hope for some discoveries. However, I took me only 15 min to walk through this museum. Nothing which could hold my attention.

The Polar Museum

The Polar Museum is part of the University of Tromso. It functions like a wormhole into the world of the pole explorers of the past two centuries. And this one had my full attention as some world famous explorers were Norwegian. Past year I have read a brilliant book which tells the stories of the first journeys to Antarctica (Niemandsland, Adwin de Kluyver, highly recommended). And in the Polar Museum those stories came alive again.

Obviously, a big section is dedicated to Roald Amundsen, a world famous explorer who have led the first polar expeditions. His team reached as first the South Pole (1911). And fifteen years later they were as well the first verified people reaching the North Pole (1926).

Planting the Norwegian flag on the South Pole, which gave them world fame.

Other sections show how life was organized in the first settlements on Svalbard. A blogpost in those times required proper handwriting.

And the relationship with the Polar animals and the humans got some good and explicit attention as well.

When I was scanning the souvenir shop near the exit if the museum, I noticed a medicine box between the souvenirs. Which was an anomaly in this kind of shop full of magnets, socks and post cards. However, the name of the medicine was even more remarkable ‘Become Gay – 213’. I was a bit puzzled at first, then I learned there was a temporary exhibition ‘Queering on the Poles’ in another part of the museum. With the topic of homosexuality during the time of the Polar expeditions. Later I learned from Google that 213 was the number of the law which stated that homosexuality in Norway was illegal. Which was later removed from the code of law and the Norwegian government made excuses for this law.

Tomorrow some serious travelling is on the menu, so some rest is needed.