Tromso museums
The clag was down on the hills again this morning at our parking spot in the hills. There was one other motorhome parked beside us and a lone cyclist had arrived at about midnight, he looked a bit wearied and the look on his face was will I stop here or struggle on to the next bit which might be miles away and not any better, so he pitched close to us on the moor on none too flat ground (but the best there was) and had his Jetboil going making his dinner at about 12:45am-thats the beauty of 24 hour daylight, we didn't speak to him but I recon he knew today's forecast was poor and had continued on later last night while it was still nice. Or, of course maybe he was just way behind schedule, or liked cycling in the evening, we will never know. We weren't up too early, but even by the time we left at 10:30ish there was still no sign of life at his tent.
We headed down into Tromso city which is actually on an island, I didn't know that before this trip, we crossed the bridge onto the island and then ended up in a warren of tunnels with roundabouts underground also. We eventually emerged right where we needed to be in centre of town near one of the attractions we wanted to visit. Polaria is claimed to be the worlds most northerly aquarium, but its more than that it's a sort of learning centre where kids can learn about the Polar areas of the world, the Aurora Borealis and mammals and fish in our seas. Theres also a lot of emphasis on plastic in our oceans also, a problem that everyone likes to talk about but no one really seems to be trying to do very much about (ourselves included when you see how much plastic waste we collate during a journey like this sadly). Callum particularly enjoyed the film on a huge screen about the the Northern lights, he was fascinated by it and I think we will need to put trying to see them on our list of things to do in the future, might not a simple task but we will think about it come the winter months. There was a lot of information on Svalbard, Norways distant ice covered islands and in particular about how the climate there is changing and how this could affect the Gulf Stream and the rest of the planet. The aquariums were quite good and there was a seal feeding and training display which they enjoyed too. They have a couple of Harbour or Common seals, and also a couple of Bearded seals which are huge. Adjacent to Polaria is an exhibition which was unfortunately shut, it is a boat called the Polstjerna Polar Star) which was a Tromso based seal hunting boat. Over a 33 year period this boat culled 100,000 seals and is now a museum with all the "tools of the trade" laid out on deck, I think it would have been an interesting visit.
Tromso as a city was built on the whale and seal industry, this will all have changed now since there is little or no demand (and rightly so) for seal products or meat and whaling is in decline also. The city now clearly relies on tourism, it is a very nice place with lovely modern restaurants and hotels along the sea front and lots of places advertising trips to fjords, deep sea fishing, watch whales, mountain biking and hiking to name but a few. One of the Hurtigrutten ferry's was in here today.
After lunch in the van, and a (ahem) slightly forged parking meter ticket we went out to walk further into town and find the Polar Museum, this house's lots exhibits and memorabilia of how the Arctic trappers and hunters of the far north lived and worked, with superb lifelike models of their huts and boats and all their tools, it must have been a seriously tough existence back in the day. There are also a fair selection of exhibits of traps and guns and harpoons used to catch and kill the animals and also plenty (stuffed) seals, arctic foxes and other animals necessary to make up the museum, which I think Joyce is worried that its maybe not right for the boys to see, I don't see any problem with it, they like to see the animals and need to know what happened in years gone by. They don't understand too much of it yet anyway. What is quite bizarre though is to see picture's of Lill-Babs the 1960's Swedish singer dressed in mini skirt wielding a huge knife and somehow trying to glamourise the butchering of a dead whale, that just doesn't seem right, neither does a very successful Polar Bear hunter proudly parading along the quayside with a baby pool bear on a leash.....they did capture babies to sell to zoo's. I think the most disturbing exhibit is a sort of self killing polar bear trap, basically this is a box housing a high powered rifle, onto the end of the box is an extension into which a piece of meat was placed attached to a string which in turn was attached to the trigger, the bear came along, stuck its nose in to get the meat, pulled it out and bang.....dead polar bear!! Hmmm, I am glad times have changed, although the future for Polar Bears is not exactly good at the moment either.
Anyway, the main reason I wanted to go here however was that its also a museum to Roald Amundsen the Norwegian polar explorer and first to reach the South Pole and find the North west Passage. There is lots of information, artefacts and notes from his trips in the converted customs House at Tromso harbour. And also there is a modified fuel tank that was found at sea after his plane crashed while trying to search for, and rescue the air ship Italia which had been trying to fly to the North Pole. They think his plane crashed, and they had to modify and use one of its fuel tanks to replace a damaged wing float, it is the only part of the aircraft ever found.
After a few hours here, the boys had had enough and it was time to head and get something to eat, Pepe's Pizza was the choice for today, we have seen this chain of fast food restaurants all the way from Stavanger to here, so a quick pizza would save a job in the van later. It wasn't too bad and not too expensive. We left and wandered along to the van and happily no parking tickets had been issued and no wheel clamps fitted for dodgy meter tickets. We got on the road and out of Tromsø and headed south, then east and over the ferry towards Lyngen, out next area for a visit. The weather is still poor today but hopefully something better will greet us tomorrow when we wake up.
Interestingly after all this ethical debate going on in my head we found a couple of restaurants advertising whale meat on their menu's....we didn't visit. Even the local tourist office had a preserved sausage made of whale meat, but also Elk meat and reindeer meat.....theres really no difference. An animal had to die to produce any of these products, or the pepperoni on our pizza for that matter.
We headed down into Tromso city which is actually on an island, I didn't know that before this trip, we crossed the bridge onto the island and then ended up in a warren of tunnels with roundabouts underground also. We eventually emerged right where we needed to be in centre of town near one of the attractions we wanted to visit. Polaria is claimed to be the worlds most northerly aquarium, but its more than that it's a sort of learning centre where kids can learn about the Polar areas of the world, the Aurora Borealis and mammals and fish in our seas. Theres also a lot of emphasis on plastic in our oceans also, a problem that everyone likes to talk about but no one really seems to be trying to do very much about (ourselves included when you see how much plastic waste we collate during a journey like this sadly). Callum particularly enjoyed the film on a huge screen about the the Northern lights, he was fascinated by it and I think we will need to put trying to see them on our list of things to do in the future, might not a simple task but we will think about it come the winter months. There was a lot of information on Svalbard, Norways distant ice covered islands and in particular about how the climate there is changing and how this could affect the Gulf Stream and the rest of the planet. The aquariums were quite good and there was a seal feeding and training display which they enjoyed too. They have a couple of Harbour or Common seals, and also a couple of Bearded seals which are huge. Adjacent to Polaria is an exhibition which was unfortunately shut, it is a boat called the Polstjerna Polar Star) which was a Tromso based seal hunting boat. Over a 33 year period this boat culled 100,000 seals and is now a museum with all the "tools of the trade" laid out on deck, I think it would have been an interesting visit.
Tromso as a city was built on the whale and seal industry, this will all have changed now since there is little or no demand (and rightly so) for seal products or meat and whaling is in decline also. The city now clearly relies on tourism, it is a very nice place with lovely modern restaurants and hotels along the sea front and lots of places advertising trips to fjords, deep sea fishing, watch whales, mountain biking and hiking to name but a few. One of the Hurtigrutten ferry's was in here today.
After lunch in the van, and a (ahem) slightly forged parking meter ticket we went out to walk further into town and find the Polar Museum, this house's lots exhibits and memorabilia of how the Arctic trappers and hunters of the far north lived and worked, with superb lifelike models of their huts and boats and all their tools, it must have been a seriously tough existence back in the day. There are also a fair selection of exhibits of traps and guns and harpoons used to catch and kill the animals and also plenty (stuffed) seals, arctic foxes and other animals necessary to make up the museum, which I think Joyce is worried that its maybe not right for the boys to see, I don't see any problem with it, they like to see the animals and need to know what happened in years gone by. They don't understand too much of it yet anyway. What is quite bizarre though is to see picture's of Lill-Babs the 1960's Swedish singer dressed in mini skirt wielding a huge knife and somehow trying to glamourise the butchering of a dead whale, that just doesn't seem right, neither does a very successful Polar Bear hunter proudly parading along the quayside with a baby pool bear on a leash.....they did capture babies to sell to zoo's. I think the most disturbing exhibit is a sort of self killing polar bear trap, basically this is a box housing a high powered rifle, onto the end of the box is an extension into which a piece of meat was placed attached to a string which in turn was attached to the trigger, the bear came along, stuck its nose in to get the meat, pulled it out and bang.....dead polar bear!! Hmmm, I am glad times have changed, although the future for Polar Bears is not exactly good at the moment either.
Anyway, the main reason I wanted to go here however was that its also a museum to Roald Amundsen the Norwegian polar explorer and first to reach the South Pole and find the North west Passage. There is lots of information, artefacts and notes from his trips in the converted customs House at Tromso harbour. And also there is a modified fuel tank that was found at sea after his plane crashed while trying to search for, and rescue the air ship Italia which had been trying to fly to the North Pole. They think his plane crashed, and they had to modify and use one of its fuel tanks to replace a damaged wing float, it is the only part of the aircraft ever found.
After a few hours here, the boys had had enough and it was time to head and get something to eat, Pepe's Pizza was the choice for today, we have seen this chain of fast food restaurants all the way from Stavanger to here, so a quick pizza would save a job in the van later. It wasn't too bad and not too expensive. We left and wandered along to the van and happily no parking tickets had been issued and no wheel clamps fitted for dodgy meter tickets. We got on the road and out of Tromsø and headed south, then east and over the ferry towards Lyngen, out next area for a visit. The weather is still poor today but hopefully something better will greet us tomorrow when we wake up.
Interestingly after all this ethical debate going on in my head we found a couple of restaurants advertising whale meat on their menu's....we didn't visit. Even the local tourist office had a preserved sausage made of whale meat, but also Elk meat and reindeer meat.....theres really no difference. An animal had to die to produce any of these products, or the pepperoni on our pizza for that matter.
OMG what a fantastic blog page I love it, man is a horrible beast to be sure buddy and we all do a great job of separating the food we eat from the suffering it causes, if your not careful you will end up like me over worrying about these things, Amundsen would have had no problem with eating anything to survive including the dogs that dragged him over the ice people nowadays get dogs and horses cremated or buried but think nothing of eating pigs sheep and cows in a throwaway wasteful unthinking society, but I think the boys will be accepting of these things at their age they will soon tell you if not! my mate had to stop his wee girl watching Scooby doo as it was giving her nightmares I can understand that more than some children's fear of dummies, my wee boy wouldn't have went near that place he cried all the way through dynamic earth also lol
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