The boat docked overnight in Tromsa. We didn't bother going in in the evening but got up early and went down to town on the shuttle bus. This is our second visit to Tromso so we didn't bother to mooch around the town because we had done that before.
We went to the Polar Museum, which had amazing icles hanging amd some that had impaled the ground!!
The museum was very interesting - gruesome in places because it's mainly about how Tromso developed, and how it was a huge big hunting, fishing area. A lot of the exhibits are about killing polar bears and foxes and reindeers for food and skins. There's some pretty gruesome traps on show but this was what life was like back in the day. A lot of the animals and now protected species so it's completely different nowadays, and Tromso are mainly relies on fishing and tourism for its main source of income.
There was also a room dedicated to Roald Amundsen who was actually the first man to get to the South Pole.. all amazing adventure stuff. Very different to the Troll Museum that we visited last time we were in Tromso.
Another other interesting bit in the museum was the exhibits supporting the story of Nansen and Johansen's attempt to get to the North Pole. My god it was Epic... they had decided that if they got on a ship and sailed as far north as possible and then got caught up in the ice cap, they would just be carried by the ice cap the pole... it didn't quite work out like that but after a lot of planning including a ship that woukd withstand the ice built they did reach about 80 degrees.
Realising that original plan was not going to work Nansen and Johanssen set off with a load of dogs, sleds and kayaks (see the picture) aiming to get to the South Pole on foot. They actually only made 85 degrees before they had to turn around due to lack of food and slowly the dogs, who were not used that the extreme weather or conditions were becoming weak - in fact they had to kill some of them off - which incidentally they said was a very traumatic experience... and they fed the meat to the remaining dogs to keep them going. At one point they realised that they were not going to make it back to land and they had to over winter in a stone hide away that they built, using a seal skin for a roof... They overwintered there for 9 months!!!! Further escapades included falling into the sea and being rescued, having to dive into the sea to get the kayaks, having to carry the kayaks because they couldn't actually use them in the water because there were too many ice flows.... there is no rhyme or reason to how these men survived, they must have been absolutely incredibly fit. The strange thing was is when they were finally rescued they were weighed and they had both put on weight !! Testament to how good Hunters and survivors they were. Fascinating story.
It was very snowy... some people were having dig their boats out...
Back to the ship and a lazy afternoon listening to music and sketching in our cabin.
The weather is warming up - we are now above zero and can see some of the snow starting to melt... there is , however a very large amount of snow so its not really making much of a dent.
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