Rope ladders rise up the towering masts with their sails smartly wrapped, seemingly ready to be hoisted for a new adventure. Below deck, dining tables are set, axes and saws hang in workshops, and there’s even a piano to soothe the loneliness of months at sea. I’m walking aboard the more than 130-year-old Fram, one of the world’s most famous polar ships, a vessel with the distinction of sailing farther north and south than any other. And it is not the only record-breaking ship I’m seeing today.
I’m spending the day on Oslo’s Bygdøy Peninsula, just a short ferry ride across the Oslofjord from the city’s tourist-packed central harbor and the Aker Brygge commercial development (where you can find the esteemed Nobel Peace Center and Norwegian National Museum). Bygdøy’s draw, however, is its four maritime-themed museums — each a testament to Norway’s passion for exploration and courage on the high seas, spanning from the Viking Age to modern-day sailors and fishermen.
Amundsen’s Antarctic and Fears of Freezing
The waterfront Fram Museum — its unusual triangular shape sized perfectly to house the polar vessel — has repeatedly been listed as one of Norway’s best museums. National hero Roald Amundsen commanded Fram’s third voyage to become the first arctic explorer to reach the South Pole in 1911. Although built of wood, the ship’s brilliant design withstood the pressure of shifting and crushing polar ice.
“The secret was the round hull,” explains museum Director Geir Kløver. “Traditional sailing ships at the time had straight hulls on the side going down to the keel. If you take a wine bottle and press two books against the bottle, it will be lifted. A completely round hull will be lifted on top of the ice instead of crushed.”
Museum exhibits showcase dog teams hauling overstuffed sleds from shore to the South Pole and how crews prepared for the journey — sewing tents, packing skis, and caring for the animals. In another, similarly shaped building, the museum houses a second ship, the Gjøa, which also sailed into the history books. The sloop commanded by Amundsen before his Fram voyage was the first ship to successfully navigate the Northwest Passage from 1903 to 1906.
Yet I find the museum’s cold room exhibit particularly astonishing when walking through its minus 12 Celsius (10.4 degrees Fahrenheit) temperature in balmy July. In makeshift cabins, two lifelike sailor figures lie in bunks, seemingly freezing to death. “The room portrays a polar expedition that went terribly wrong. Ice is coming through the walls and the men have severe scurvy,” notes Kløver. “Many visiting the museum wearing t-shirts and shorts in summer don’t really know what cold is. Minus 12 Celsius is nothing. These guys were in minus 40 and minus 50 degrees.”
Norwegian Adventurers in the South Pacific
Next to the Fram Museum, the Kon-Tiki Museum showcases quite a different adventure, though no less daring. It houses Kon-Tiki, a hand-built balsa-wood raft on which Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl and his intrepid crew of five sailed 8,000 kilometers (4,970 miles) from Peru to the ….
By Richard Varr
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