Tromsø houses the Centre for Polar Exploration and had there been time I would have liked to visit the Polar Museum with its exhibition recording the exploits of Roald Amundsen a native of the city who of course beat Shackleton to the South Pole in 1911 and who was the first to navigate the North West Passage from 1903 – 1906 during which he also located the magnetic north pole. Another famous artic explorer who set off from Tromsø was Fridtjof Nansen who led the first expedition to cross Greenland ice fields in 1888 and five years later sailed from Siberia to the North Pole which he failed to reach on the Fram. Today the Fram is a modern expedition cruise ship used by the Hurtigruten Line in the Arctic and Antarctic.
These explorers used Tromsø because of its unrivalled knowledge and know-how on the conditions in the Arctic, and often recruited their crew in the city.
The photos are of the Roald Amundsen statue that stands close to the waterfront in Tromsø and of Fridtjof Nansen with his sled and dog team of huskies that stands outside the Polaria Centre built in 1998 as an aquarium.
I had visited Polaria Centre before on the way to Spitzbergen in August 2007 but I remembered it as interesting and spent the rest of my afternoon watching the Bearded Seals with their 6 inch long whiskers that they use to detect prey over 100 metres deep down in the pitch dark and smaller Harbour Seals being fed and trained. Seals are highly intelligent animals and according to one of the trainers ‘easier to train than my dog’ but the main reason for feeding and training is to keep the seals active and from getting bored. It was a highly entertaining 30 minutes followed by a short film in a panoramic cinema flying up the west coast of Spitzbergen following the migration of Little Auks – a lovely reminder of my trip to Spitzbergen and of the many features of this land that I have not seen – well not yet anyway – including polar bears.
I was going to buy a stuffed toy polar bear one in the Polaria gift shop until I realised it was £45.00!!
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