TROMSO

Monday 22^nd June 2010

Population = 66,500

Midnight Sun - 18^th May to 25^th July

Polar Night - 11^th November to 15^th January

Average temperature: July = 11.9 C

January = -4..4 C

If July averages nearly 12 degrees, then it has a long way to go in the next few days. Today has consistently remained around 6-7 degrees. It has also lightly rained enough to keep the streets wet.

So once I headed out from the AMI Hotel, it seemed sensible to try and find a few activities which would keep me inside. I headed down the steep streets and stopped to take photo of the Radhuest or City Hall. A tall modern building it has lots of glass windows. I went into the foyer and looked at the glass roof several stories up. Different floor levels on three sides looked down onto the entrance level. It was all light and spacious. I realised that on the floor below and accessed from another street was the Focus Cinema. I had noticed a old turn of the 20^th century building down the road which was named KINO. This was freshly painted and had lots of character and must have been the city's cinema until recent times.

It was only a block to the Perspektivet Museum.

This museum prides itself on the documentary photography and special exhibitions which it displays from time to time. The, but from a positive viewpoint. Reception gave me a warm welcome – but I soon noticed that everyone got that as well. The Museum is free so what ever was there would be good value.

Their special short term exhibition was photographic. About 50 large colour prints be a South African photographer, illustrating the problem of HIV/AIDS. This showed a positive side to the disease. Care workers providing support to victims, grandmothers looking after the children of deceased parents from AIDS. Attempts to provide education and outside activities to keep young people away from drugs and other problems. There was also shots of small local industries set up to give employment. Perhaps a sewing machine or assistance setting up a vegetable growing business. The photos were all well taken and they did present and interesting side to the epidemic which we do not normally see.

On the next floor there was a combined exhibition – mostly photographic, covering the history of trade between the area and Russia. Before the Russian Revolution there had been a vibrant trade flow between Tromso and Murmansk. Each year once the ice cleared, Russian sailing boats would come with a cargo of furs, birch bark and other goods and take back loads of salted fish.

As a result of this annual trade stretching over many years, Norwegians learnt Russian and Russians learnt Norwegian.

Some settled in the other cities and some intermarriage took place. Once the Revolution occurred the whole trade stopped and contact was lost for 70 years. Since the end of communism there has been an opening up of contact again. Long split families have been able to reunite and the exhibition told some touching stories about this.

Russian trawlers became active in Norwegian coastal waters and for a time were accused of fishing out the local fish stock. This may have happened. As a result the regular birthing of Russian trawlers in Tromso was not popular for a time. The second part of the exhibition covered the life on board a Russian trawler. These boats go out for 6 to 9 months at a time and load catch onto mother boats. One captain's wife featured commented that although they had been married for 20 years their actual time together would be not more than six years. She regularly went to the local Orthodox Church to light a candle for her husband whenever she was worried about him at sea.

On board fish is the main food provided along with bread. They have to work in very rough and freezing conditions with ice on all the deck fittings. They have large video tape library to entertain themselves.

The comments from some of the captains showed that they appreciated the exhibition revealing their lives as they thought rather isolated from the people of Tromso and didn't have much contact when they birthed in the harbout.

Having recently been to Murmansk and also learn about the increasing contact in Kirkenes, where the ability to even speak Russian will get the person a work contract, I did find this an informative exhibition. It added to my understanding of the northern area. I had not realised how much contact had gone on in the years prior to the Revolution.

On the top floor was a further photo display of Tromso in the past – mostly around the early 1900's. This didn't interest me as much other than to see how small the town had been then.

There was one other small permanent display relating to a Norwegian author who had once lived in this very building which now housed the museum. She had started off as a painter and quite a competent one judging by the reproductions of some of her work. But in the late 1920's she started writing and became very successful. Many of her stories were set in her childhood experiences in Tromso. I am sure that many Norwegians would find this little collection of interest but I had never heard of her.

My next visit was just a couple of blocks away and at the waterfront. This was the Polar Museum where most of the exhibits dealt with the Norwegian expeditions into Polar areas – mostly northwards. They especially featured the exploits of Roland Amundsen who had a lot of contact with Tromso although I could not work out if he was actually born in the area. Certainly he headed north from here at least once and his fatal air trip departed from Tromso.

There is a statue of Amundsen overlooking the Hurtigruten wharf and this is where I first realised the connection yesterday. Now outside the museum is a bust of him and at least a further one inside.

Outside also are five or six harpoon guns set up with harpoons intact. They certainly looked gruesome weapons. Some had expanding heads which would lock into the whale and not easy pull out. The largest looked as though it could contain a small explosive charge.

Near the museum, is a small ship repair year with a slipway. I was interested to see a ship up on the skids and to watch a worker cleaning around the ship's propeller.

The museum attendant was not able to give me an English language guide. They apparently run out, someone was using the last one. When I went back later and asked if it was now available he said no. But a woman at the counter said yes and handed me a printed booklet of translations for all the displays. The male was surprised and it appeared that he did not know about it. He was handing out the general museum information leaflet.

I had already been right through the museum by that stage so just sat down and read through the booklet to clear up areas I had not been able to work out.

The first room covered the history of Svaldard. William Benentez was a Dutch explorer who had a good look around the island in the 17^th century about 1642 if I recall correctly. He named it Spitsbergen. However, the existence of the islands had been know for several centuries previously and the display suggests that even early man lived there during the Stone Age hunting and gathering period. They would have followed reindeer and other animals across an ice bridge reaching from Russia through other island groups to Svaldard. Not much evidence for this although some implements have been found.

Quite soon after the Dutch exploration the island group became a centre of whaling and later seal hunting. Several nations established bases and often had government forces to support their claim to the space. Soon the whales and then the seal supply was largely exhausted and the industry declined. Soon mining for coal replaced the sea as a source of income.

So the islands and the small population became the last stopping point for several zeppelin expeditions to attempt to fly over the North Pole. Most did not succeed, but one with Amundsen on board sailed all the way to Alaska and was the first airship or plane to fly over the Pole.

Then people were trying to fly float planes over the area as well but tended to disappear in the attempt. There were also several sailing endeavours were the boat was either crushed by the ice or trapped in ice for one or more years. There were some brave men around at that stage – and I suspect some foolishnes as well.

The museum had set up life sized fur trappers hut, a captains cabin, and several other displays.

It was informative and you did learn a lot about a few key individuals related to Tromso in some way or another.

It was still cold and damp when I came out of the museum and so I decided to just go to a shopping centre and after looking around go to the supermarket and get items for dinner. Then I climbed up the hill to the hotel and enjoyed its warmth.