Ready for a new season of exciting polar evenings at the Ishavsmuseet
In recent years, the Ishavsmuseet has had great success with a series of interesting polar evenings at the museum. New and old polar history has been communicated to an ever-growing audience, and director Webjørn Landmark is looking forward to presenting many interesting names for the polar evenings this spring.
Who was actually first at the North Pole?
First out is Olav Orheim who will visit the museum on January 30. Orheim is a glaciologist and has led many expeditions to both the Arctic and Antarctic. He received his doctorate in glaciology from Ohio State University, and is today considered one of the world's leading glaciologists. Orheim first started at the Norwegian Polar Institute in 1965 as a research assistant. He later served as director of the Norwegian Polar Institute for 12 years. He also played a central role in the development of the Troll research station in Queen Maud Land. He is also known as the initiator of the Norwegian Glacier Museum in Fjærland and the Polaria experience center at the Polar Environment Center in Tromsø. Orheim has held positions as chairman of the board of Polaria, the Norwegian Glacier Museum in Sogn, and has been chairman of the board of the Frammuseet for a number of years. He will come to the Ishavsmuseet with the lecture "Who was actually the first to reach the North Pole?"
Seal hunting then and now.
Bear Kvernmo will be coming to the museum on February 20. Bjørne started fishing in the Arctic Ocean in 1973, and is still active with more than 40 years behind him on the Arctic Ocean. Today he is skipper and rower of the ship "Havsel". In recent years he has fished in the West Ice, but he has experience from all fishing grounds. In 1990 he published the book "Selfangsten, En utdøende tradisjon?", and he is also known from several television programs where he has been a celebrity, ice pilot and skipper for many expeditions. At the Ishavsmuseet he talks about "Selfangst før og no".
Hold on tight!
Samuel Massie will come to the Ishavsmuseet on March 20. He is currently working on the book "Hold fast" which was published by Spartacus forlag last fall. You can also see Samuel on TV-Norge these days working on the series "Berserk". Samuel Massie left a life as a school dropout in Bergen and traveled with Jarle Andhøy on the fateful expedition to Antarctica. The ship "Berserk" disappeared on February 22, 2011, and the following year they returned to find traces of their comrades if possible. He has been in the TV series Sjøsprøyt (NRK), Tangeruddampen and Berserk mot Sydpolen (TVNorge). At the Ishavsmuseet, Samuel will narrate and show films from these expeditions, and of course narrate from his book "Hold fast", which is of course available for purchase and signing after the lecture.
The herring is coming!
The last man out in this round of polar nights is the famous herring base Jan Johansen. Jan is a living encyclopedia of fishing history, and the stories from the heyday of herring fishing along our coast are endless. "Did you know?; -In 1954 we caught around 11-12 million hectoliters of herring. We made so much money that it was almost hard to carry!", says Jan. He grew up herring fishing and probably learned a lot from his famous father Harald "Bas" Johansen. The large winter herring fisheries in Western Norway after the 1950s attracted international attention. The Norwegian government arranged trips for foreign diplomats to the herring fields, and travel agencies arranged trips for tourists. Newspapers and radio followed closely. The most skilled seiners became celebrities of the time. Jan Johansen will bring many stories and good photos when he visits the Ishavsmuseet on April 24.
