A Day at the Museum: Finding Beauty, Truth, and Meaning in Norway

“A country that has few museums is both materially poor and spiritually poor …museums, like theaters and libraries, are a means to freedom.” — Wendy Beckett, Art Historian

Breathtaking fjords, majestic glaciers, and spectacular wildlife are high on the adventure list of reasons to visit Norway. What many people may not realize is that Norway offers a lot of other exciting diversions that may on the surface seem to be less adventurous, but they are no less intriguing. In a country whose history spans beyond 10,000 years, it’s not surprising that Norway has approximately one hundred world-class museums within their borders that contain unique, culturally significant, historical artifacts that can only be seen here. Everything from Viking ships, Polar exploration, flora and fauna, historical villages, Nazi occupation of Norway during World War II, sculptures, fine art, contemporary art, the world’s oldest museum dedicated to skiing, along with the world’s largest museum devoted solely to Norwegian expressionist painter, Edvard Munch.

During our last trip to Norway, we had one free day in Oslo to devote to museum visits and managed to squeeze in four of them. The next day soon after we landed in Svalbard, a remote Norwegian archipelago situated between continental Norway and the North Pole, we were able to make a quick visit to the Svalbard Museum in Longyearbyen hours before boarding and embarking on a 10-day polar cruising expedition. Yes, even here in “Northernmost inhabited place in the world”, there was a museum. What follows provides a summary of five spectacular museums we chose to visit while in Norway.

Viking Ship Museum

“On we sweep with threshing oar. Our only goal will be the western shore.” — Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin

Norway’s most famous museum is arguably the Viking Ship Museum located on the Bygdøy peninsula in Oslo. The museum’s small historic purpose-built, building shelters three of the best-preserved Viking Era long ships ever unearthed, the Oseberg, the Gokstad, and the Tune. All three of these massive wooden vessels are over 1,000 years old and were excavated following their discovery in Norway between the years 1867 and 1903. Intriguingly, these ocean-going vessels were hauled ashore to be used as elaborate burial mounds for four Norse elite.

Archaeologists who excavated the Oseberg ship in 1904 declared it was the most beautiful Viking tomb ever found. Constructed from wood that has been dated to 834 AD, this vessel contained the burial remains of two unidentified females, along with a considerable quantity of funerary artifacts. Some historians hypothesize that one of these women may have been sacrificed to accompany the higher-ranking woman in the afterlife.

Built around the year 890 AD, the Gokstad ship may have been used for trade, exploration, and Viking “raid and trade” missions. The identity of the male skeleton found at this burial site remains a mystery. Archaeologists believe he may have been a wealthy, high-ranking, nobleman, a chieftain, or a prominent Viking warrior. Curiously, no weapons were found on the Gokstad, which were considered an important part of a Viking’s possessions.

The Tune ship was the first Viking long ship to be excavated in 1887, and despite its fragmentary remains, it is considered to be the world’s third best-preserved ship of its kind. Built around 900 AD, the Tune’s burial chamber held the body of a man. Among the artifacts found at this grave were the remains of weapons and a suit of chain mail.

The Viking Ship Museum is one of only several museums on this planet specifically dedicated to allowing people to get an up-close-and-personal view of these three Viking era burial long ships. Designated elevated viewing areas within the museum allow patrons to view these ships from a different perspective and to fully appreciate their immense size. The museum also showcases an extensive collection of intricate artifacts such as weapons, carts, sleds, beautiful wood carvings, textiles and cooking utensils, that archaeologists unearthed from the Viking ship burial mounds and provides information as to how these vessels were found and preserved. Throughout the day, the adventure film The Vikings Alive is screened on a ceiling and wall inside the museum. And in a nod to the benefits of modern technology, if you happen to have a smartphone inn hand, patrons can scan the barcodes associated with the exhibits to receive more detailed information.

Fram Museum: The Polar Ship Fram

“The most basic task of any museum must be the protection of works of cultural significance entrusted to its care for the edification and pleasure of future generations.” — Martin Filler

The Fram Museum houses Norway’s first wooden schooner specifically built to withstand the crush of polar sea ice. The vessel was used famous Norwegian explorers Fridtjof Nansen, Otto Sverdrup, and Roald Amundsen for three great research expeditions to the north pole and south pole between the years 1893 to 1912. Having sailed further north and south than any other vessel, the world´s strongest wooden ship is today the focal point of the well designed and highly interactive Fram Museum.

Today, museum patrons are allowed to wander through this piece of history visiting crew cabins, cargo holds, engine room and main deck areas of this iconic polar ship. The ship’s interior rooms are furnished with polar expedition gear, scientific equipment, and other shipboard artifacts that were actually used during the expeditions.

One of the museums unique highlights is gazing up from the Fram’s main deck to view the continuous 270 degrees surround film playing on the museum’s walls and ceiling depicting storm-lashed seas and the ethereal glow of the Northern Lights. Another featured exhibit is a polar simulator where visitors can experience the cold and the dangers inherent in polar expeditions more than one century ago.

The Kon-Tiki Museum

It is as much the conversations between objects as between us and objects that make museums so valuable. — Antony Gormley

“Borders? I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people.” These profound words of world-renowned Norwegian scientist and explorer, Thor Heyerdahl, are inscribed in the wall near the entrance of the Kon-Tiki Museum. Literally located right next door to the Fram Museum, Oslo’s Kon-Tiki Museum was originally built in the wake of Heyerdahl’s famous 1947 Kon-Tiki Expedition, an epic three-month 4,288 mile (6,900 kilometers) open sea voyage on a balsawood raft, drifting from Peru to Polynesia at the mercy of  the Humboldt Current and the trade winds. The expedition’s objective was to prove Heyerdahl’s theory that ancient mariners might have colonized Polynesia from the South American mainland.

The Kon-Tiki Museum also features historical artifacts from Heyerdahl’s audacious expeditions, most notably the original Kon-Tiki balsa wood raft, and the papyrus reed boat Ra II, a vessel built of reeds according to Heyerdahl’s theory of an ancient Egyptian seagoing vessel which he and his crew successfully sailed from North Africa to the Caribbean after a previous failed attempt with the reed boat Ra. The Ra II’s oceanic journey covered 3,790 miles (6,100 kilometers) from Morocco to Barbados in 57 days.

Museum visitors can also experience beneath the Kon-Tiki raft is a 10-metre model of a whale shark and fish underwater that the crew famously encountered during the voyage, along with Heyerdahl’s vast personal library of approximately 8,000 books, along with maps from the Kon-Tiki Expedition.

Having read about Thor Heyerdahl’s exploits in school, there is a profound visceral feeling one cannot easily dismiss while standing within a few feet of the actual Kon-Tiki raft.

Norway’s Resistance Museum

“If there is anyone who still wonders why this war is being fought, let him look to Norway. If there is anyone who has any delusions that this war could have been averted, let him look to Norway; and if there is anyone who doubts the democratic will to win, again I say, let him look to Norway.” — President Franklin D. Roosevelt (16 September 1942)

Norway’s Resistance Museum, also known as the Norwegian Home Front Museum, aims to give an authentic presentation of the German occupation during World War II between the years 1940 to 1945.

Founded by Norwegian underground resistance fighters shortly after the war, this museum is located in a 17th century building at Akershus Fortress, adjoining the memorial for Norwegian patriots executed during the war. The Germans made use of this medieval castle during WWII to imprison and interrogate resistance fighters. In 1945, 42 Norwegian patriots were executed near the double battery building, which now houses the Resistance Museum. While thousands fought in Norway’s Resistance movement, a sad footnote to this horrific space in time is more than 2,000 of these men and women died in action either by execution, or in concentration camps.

Displays re-create the five years of Norway’s Nazi occupation, courageous resistance, and eventual liberation through images, documents, dioramas, posters, military artifacts, newspapers and recordings. Exhibits are in chronological order, starting on the day of invasion, April 9th, 1940.

Early on patrons are met with a brutal modern sculpture of clustered rifles, and a note in German, impaled on a bayonet, declaring Norway as occupied. Recollections of people in the resistance movement play an equally significant role at the museum.

Cold Edge: Svalbard Museum

“A people without knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture are like a tree without roots.” — Marcus Garvey

One could be forgiven for not ever expecting to find a museum in Longyearbyen, the largest town in Norway’s remote Svalbard archipelago. Svalbard literally translates as “cold edge”, an apropos name for this northern land the locals call “Next to the North Pole”.

Highlighting the natural and cultural history of the region, the Svalbard Museum is an expansive modern facility that was awarded the Council of Europe’s Museum Prize for best European Museum in 2008, competing against 59 other noteworthy European Museums.

Housing more than 3,500 artifacts, the facility exhibits fragments of Svalbard’s 400-year history and features reconstructed environments and displays that tell the story of the arrival of 17th century European whalers, Arctic Russian seafaring traders known as Pomors and arctic explorers.

Other exhibits document the incredibly harsh conditions local coal miners worked under during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Norwegian trapping and educational displays about Arctic flora and fauna. Svalbard’s award-winning museum proved to be well worth a visit as it provided excellent insight into this remote Norwegian archipelago’s rich history, wildlife, geology and civilization.

Beauty, Truth, And Meaning

“A visit to a museum is a search for beauty, truth, and meaning in our lives. Go to museums as often as you can.” — Maira Kalman, Artist

Museums provide world explorers with a connection between the past and future. As important repositories of human culture, natural history, ancient artifacts, and artistic achievements, these cultural institutions inspire people to reflect upon their own lives and experiences.

No matter where off the beaten path roads less traveled may lead you, endeavor to seek out and visit some local museums. Go as often as you can and immerse yourself in beauty, truth, and meaning.

Until our next dispatch, dare to Explore…Dream…Discover.

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