Polar evening at the Ishavsmuseet on January 29: Ny-Ålesund – from mining town to research base
Per Kyrre Reymert will be visiting the Ishavsmuseet with a lecture about Ny-Ålesund on Friday, January 29th at 19 pm. He will take us 100 years back in time, and will start his lecture from the time when the place was called Brandal City.
In 2016 it is 100 years since Peter S. Brandal was offered the rights to the Kings Bay coalfield. In the early summer of 1916 he sent his two ships "Signalhorn" and "Polaris" on an expedition to investigate the field more closely. They returned to Brandal in early September with 300 tons of prime coal. Peter S. Brandal had the rights transferred to him in September 1916 for NOK 250.000. Later that same year he entered into a partnership with Trygve Klausen, Michael Knutsen and Trygve Jervell to form Kings Bay Kull Comp. A/S
Per Kyrre Reymert will draw the story from this time, about the ups and downs of the mining community, to today's modern research base.
Reymert is an archaeologist, historian, author and educator. He has studied, researched and communicated the history of Svalbard for 40 years. The first time he came to Svalbard 40 years ago, his assignment was to assess whether the old pig house could become a museum. That is how it happened, and that was also the start of the Svalbard Museum. It was around the same time that Svalbard received its first regulations for the protection of cultural heritage. It was also this that eventually led him to start documenting and communicating the history of Svalbard.
In 2014, Reymert received Longyearbyen's cultural award for this work.
A major work about the hunting lodges in Svalbard was recently published. Co-authored by archaeologist and history educator Per Kyrre Reymert. The encyclopedia is over 700 pages long, covering 317 locations with hunting lodges from 1794 to the present day. Reymert has also written the booklet "Longyearbyen, From company town to modern city". He has been a cultural heritage advisor to the Governor of Svalbard and a temporary head of outreach at the Svalbard Museum.
On Friday, January 29th, he will come to Brandal and will convey the history of Ny-Ålesund to us. The Ishavsmuseet will mark its 100th anniversary on various occasions in 2016. The statue of Kings Bay founder and Arctic explorer Peter S. Brandal will be unveiled at the museum in September.
After Reymert's lecture at the Ishavsmuseet, clipfish with all the good trimmings will be served in the museum café. Registration at noon.
