Day 10: Tromso tourists

on December 28, 2019

The museums and shops all reopened for our final full day in Tromso. It was strange to see lights on, and people in the streets!

A top 3 was identified – the Art Museum, the Polar Museum, and the Perspective Museum, with plenty of time to enjoy the city streets in between.

The Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum’s (Northern Norway Art Museum) collection is focused on the people, places and stories that make up the history and future of the North. It’s relatively modern, and made up of a range of techniques and media.

It was complemented by a special exhibition called ‘Like Betzy’, celebrating the work of Betzy Akersloot-Bergs (1850-1922). Betzy was bold and fearless, travelling extensively and venturing on expeditions that that were feared by men and women alike. She was a lover of the sea, whose coastal landscapes that featured the whaling, ships and harbours reflected the growth of Norway. Her works were exhibited extensively through Europe – unique for a woman of her time. After her death her work fell out of the limelight, with the male artists regaining prominence.

Betzy clearly challenged herself to chase her dreams. We all need to make sure we find our own inner-Betzy!

It was nice to be able to stop in some of the shops on the way through town. It’s quite a different mix… plenty of bookshops, small homewares stores, and knitting shops! It’s years since I’ve seen so much wool!!! I suspect it’s a reflection of the climate, and the long evenings. We also found a shop with a section for traditional Norwegian dress (there was a range!), with amazingly intricate embroidery.

The Polar Museum focused on the history of the North – the whaling, seal and polar bear hunting and expeditions to the North Pole. Roald Amundsen, Fridtjof Nansen and Hjalmar Johanesen all explored the region on the ‘Fram’. The plan on one expedition was to freeze the ship into the Arctic ice sheet, and float it over to the North Pole… I’m sure it had scientific merit at the time, but was unsurprisingly unsuccessful!

Life as an explorer would have been unbelievably harsh. It’s cold in Tromso, so it would have been truly arctic out there!

Tromso has the greatest number of old wooden houses of anywhere in Norway – they are everywhere through the town. It’s lovely to see a place that enjoys, respects and maintains the old styles. I love the tiny yellow house…

Many of the commercial and retail buildings are also wooden, and look so pretty with their windows lit. One notable exception is the library – it stands out beautifully at the top of a hill in the middle of town!

Our final museum for the day was the Perspectivet Museum. It’s a contemporary museum, focused on documentary photography with the purpose of ‘developing and sharing knowledge as the basis for understanding connections in life, for creating tolerance of cultural diversity, and for offering alternative sociocultural perspectives’.

One exhibition looked at the religious diversity in Tromsø, while another looked at the early work of Knut Stokmo on the streets of Tromsø in the early 60s. It was interesting to see the town developing – roads being sealed, the bridge opening, and the cable car being built.

One of the things I’ve loved about Tromsø is the sculptures that appear around the town. We’ve seen many that depict people and animals, and they all seem to have a modern whimsical style. If they have plaques then they are hidden by snow! Some of my favourites…