Fram Museum

What can you do when the weather offers only cold, rain and in the mountains you find winter already? Well, you can stay at home all weekend or go for a walk somewhere in the woods. Living near Oslo has the advantage that you can also explore the capital of Norway. For some time I was planning to visit the Viking Ship Museum (Vikingskipshuset), unfortunately I decided to go there too late. In September it was closed and reconstruction started. A completely new, larger building is to be built and all the exhibits will be moved to a new location. The planned opening will be (watch out, don’t fall off your seats) in 2026. So I have to be patient.

But Oslo offers other museums, including those with a similar, maritime theme. At the end of the Bygdøy peninsula, there are three such places: Fram Museum (Frammuseet), Kon-Tiki Museum and the Norwegian Maritime Museum (Norsk Maritim Museum). On Bygdøy you can also find the aforementioned Viking Ship Museum and the Norwegian Folk Museum (Norsk Folkemuseum).

Single ticket for an adult costs 140 kr. Combined tickets are also available offering entry to two or all three museums. You can save a bit (20kr). However, please note that such combo tickets must be used on the same day. You can get there by your own car and park in the parking lot (paid) intended for visitors, or use public transport. Train to Skøyen station, then bus line 30 or 31.

I was there shortly after opening, i.e. after 10.00 on a cloudy Sunday morning. The main building of the Fram Museum, with a triangular cross-section, did not make a special impression. Walls covered yellow paint begged for renovation. I decided to start right here.

Fram (norwegian forward) is the name of a polar ship that was built almost 130 years ago. On its deck, Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen made their polar journeys. Today, Fram is entirely the main element of the museum’s exhibition. In addition, inside (in the adjacent building accessed via an underground tunnel) is another polar ship from that era, the Gjøa, a boat that Amundsen crossed the famous Northwest Passage.

But let’s go inside. When buying a ticket (380kr and admission to three museums) I received a free map showing what is where and a recommendation  to watch the movie in the cinema room first. This one was located in the second building (where the Gjøa ship is). The film lasted 15 minutes, and the headphones on each seat made it possible to listen to the voice in one of several languages. The archival material summarized the most important Norwegian achievements in the field of the conquest of the Arctic and Antarctica at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. It was a foretaste of what awaited me right after I left the cinema room.

First, I took atention at the boards on the walls and the exhibits in the display cases. There was information about Franklin’s tragic journey in the 1840s. At that time, a shorter and easier route from Europe to China was sought. When sailing around Cape Horn in the south, you were exposed to the ruthless element of the sea, so the attention of the sailors turned to the north (the Panama Canal was opened in 1920). The arctic regions were poorly explored at the time, and there were no maps showing what stretched north of Canada’s coast. There was a belief, however, that you could sail there from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and several daring expeditions were organized long before Franklin’s expedition. John Franklin was an experienced sailor, famous for his exploration of the northern shores of Canada (1819-1822, 1826-1827). In 1845, under his command, two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, set out from England to find the Northwest Passage. Both ships were trapped in the ice, and two years later the crew (without their commander who had died earlier) set off on foot south, looking for help. None of the sailors returned alive.

Franklin’s expedition fires the imagination to this day. The wreckage of the HMS Erebus was found in 2014 (east of the island of O’Reilly), and the sister HMS Terror two years later (in the bay on King William Island). You can read about the likely course of those events (apart from fantastic and mythological elements) in Dan Simmons’ sensational novel „Terror” (even a tv series was created on its basis).

More than half a century passed before the Northwest Passage was finally traversed. It was done by a Norwegian, Roald Amundsen on the Gjøa ship. Amundsen, probably under the influence of the achievements of his elderly compatriot Fridtjof Nansen, gained experience in Arctic and Antarctic expeditions of other explorers. His first independent expedition was to locate the magnetic North Pole and cover the way connecting the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean. He also dreamed of putting a foot on the pole as the first man on Earth. For the purposes of the expedition, he purchased a small sloop called Gjøa and recruited a crew of 6. In June 1903, Gjøa set off on a cruise. Amundsen and his crew spent two years on King William Land, carrying out research work. They determined the location of the magnetic North Pole, made detailed maps of the surrounding areas and made contact with the local Inuit. From them, the Norwegians learned their habits, hunting techniques in extreme conditions and how to build of igloos. The crew-founded settlement (Gjoa Haven) still exists today.

In August 1905, Gjøa moved further west, and soon the Northwest Passage was passed. Amundsen returned to Norway as a hero. But he was still thinking about reaching the North Pole. The plans for the next expedition were already well advanced, he managed to get his ship Fram from Nansen, but then the world spread the news that Frederick Albert Cook and Robert Edwin Peary had reached the north pole. Amundsen therefore decided to go in the opposite direction and be the first to reach the South Pole. The crew and the public, along with Nansen and King Haakon, found out about the change of plan after the ship had sailed to the Ocean.

At the same time, a British expedition led by Lieutenant Robert Falcon Scott was heading to the South Pole. The race was won by Amundsen, reaching the pole a month ahead of the British (December 14, 1911). The advantage was provided by dog ​​sleds and skiing. Scott and his companions did reach the Pole, but they all died on the way back, defeated by hunger and cold.

Amundsen once again returned with glory, but did not intend to spend his days at home. He became interested in aviation and the possibilities offered by planes in the exploration of Arctic regions. In 1918, on the ship Maud (named after the Norwegian queen), he set off towards the Northeast Passage to repeat Nansen’s feat.

Amundsen’s next exploits are related to aviation. He tried to fly over the North Pole by plane, but without success. The success came with the use of the Norge airship (1926). Two years later, Amundsen was died during the rescue operation of the Italian airship crew in an attempt to repeat Norge’s success. His body was never found.

All this information (and even more) can be found in the display cases and on the boards placed around the Gjøa ship. Before I finally decided to go onboard (yes, yes, you can get on board, and also go down to the hold and aft lounge), I saw the temporary exhibition The Nansen Photographs, showing reproductions of original photos taken by the participants of the Nansen expedition in the years 1893 – 1896 and excerpts from their diaries. The ship itself made quite an impression on me, even though there is not much to see below deck. However, the awareness that you are treading on boards that were laid over a hundred years ago gives a lot to think about.

I had a lot more to see and time was pressing, so I headed on. In the tunnel between the buildings there is a gallery of polar explorers, and exhibits from the polar exhibition that took place probably in the first half of the 20th century. I watched it all quite briefly because the show’s highlight, Fram, was waiting for me in all its glory.

A 3-mast schooner with dimensions: 39 m long, 11 m wide, 5.5 m draft and 800 tons displacement. The bow and stern have been additionally strengthened to withstand the pressure of ice (the thickness of the hull at the bow is 1.25m).

Fridtjof Nansen is a legend man. He studied biology, was interested in oceanography and geology. He made research of seals on the coast of Greenland when he was a student. In 1888, he and his four companions walked from the east to the west of Greenland coast, which took them 49 days. On the spot, it turned out that they did not have a way to return home, so while waiting for the ship, which was to arrive next spring, they made contact with the natives and lived in their settlement. By observing the habits of the Inuit, Nansen gained experience that he used during his next trip.

Nansen’s expedition (1893-1896) was aimed at exploring the Arctic regions, and if there was a chance, it would also conquer the North Pole. Nansen assumed that the ship would be trapped in the ice and drift to the northwest direction with the ice pack, moved by the sea currents. Such an idea was widely considered suicidal, as so far no ship has been able to withstand the pressure of the ice. Nansen’s ship, however, was designed specifically to survive in such conditions. The rounded hull caused the ice pressing against it to push it upwards, besides, the reinforced hull and more closely spaced frames, as well as the raised rudder and propeller made Fram undertake two more polar expeditions later.

As expected, Fram was trapped in the ice and started a drift, and the crew (13 people) regularly carried out hydrological, biological, magnetic and astronomical surveys. A real polar base was built around the ship: laboratories, workshops, kennels for dogs used for sleds. Fram has reached the previously unattainable latitude of 85 ° 57’N. When it became obvious that the drift would not bear the ship to the pole, Nansen decided with one crew member and three dog sleds to leave the ship and go to the pole on foot (1985). They reached 86 ° 14’N before decided to turn back. They reached Nortbrook Island, where they found members of the British polar expedition. Thanks to them, they safely returned to Norway (1896). Meanwhile, Fram and the rest of the crew managed to break free from the ice and return home as well.

The course of the first Fram expedition is so amazing that it deserves a separate entry. Maybe one day it will happen.

A lot of information is placed on boards and screens in two galleries around the ship. In addition, you can enter the igloo replica, shoot virtual polar bears, try to pull the harness with a fully loaded sled or experience chilling moments on the deck of a polar ship (hydraulically operated deck, cold air blows, deceased sailors on berths).

However, the biggest attraction is Fram itself. Here too, as well as Gjøa, you can go onboard. Fram is even more impressive. We have more places to penetrate below deck. Some of them are inaccessible, but through the glass doors we can look inside (engine room, kitchen or crew quarters). So we go through the aft lounge, wardroom and workshops and we can go down to the hold. There is a lot of space on the upper deck, and the at the walls around there is a projection of rough sea or polar night.

The last stage of the tour is the shop. In addition to typical souvenirs such as plush toys or tin mugs with the name of the Nansen ship, there are a large number of books, some of which, as I have figured out, are published by the Museum itself.

I spent three hours in the museum and enjoyed myself as if I were in the best movie in the cinema. If I had not tickets to use for two neighboring museums, I would probably have spent the whole day there. In short, a place worth visiting.

I will describe what the Kon-Tiki Museum and the Norwegian Maritime Museum offers next time.