The Polar Museum

Our visit to this museum was unfortunately not as good as we had hoped. This museum, situated in an old, authentic customs building should tell the story about the history of the artic region and the famous polar explorers. However, about 80% of their exhibitions are about hunting artic animals with graphic scenes and stuffed wild animals. The information provided at the exhibitions is only in Norwegian, they offer paper booklets (worn printed A4’s) in multiple languages which means you’ll have to look everything up if you want to know more about something. The exhibitions were outdated and objects felt quite scattered with insufficient structure in the story they tried to tell. Some artefacts were interesting to see but lacking in information. The building itself is quite beautiful to walk through. A walk through this museum took about 30 minutes which was not worth the price. Save yourself the trouble and money to visit this place!

Nice museum about history of working and living in polar region. Lots of polar animals skins and furs. Stories of people and pioneers are presented too. Info about Svalbard is presented too.

A great little museum to learn about all things Artic. We were in Tromso Norway for holiday and we stumbled into this little museum. We were given an English booklet to explain about each room and the history behind. As someone from the tropical its really fascinating to learn about the Artic way of life, the people, the technician, Marine life and much more. A great little museum to check out while in town

Great museum in Tromso! Most of the placards are only in Norwegian so they give you a booklet in your language. Has a small gift shop and restrooms. No need to buy advance tickets…at least in January. Get ready for a bit of reality — animal traps, hunting baby seals, a grave — some grim stuff, but very well preserved and well presented. I would highly recommend to anyone except the extremely squeamish. Arctic life and exploration was tough in ages past, and this museum gives a super overview of all aspects. Very entertaining as well.

We spent a good couple of hours here and learned a lot! We were given a paper guide in English as not all of the exhibits are translated, and we found it easy to use to follow the exhibits. We really enjoyed it and found the information very interesting.

It’s much bigger than it looks from the outside, packed with information and traditions. The exhibitions are well made and engaging, making it a fascinating and educational visit for everyone.

A very unique and fascinating museum about the history of the colonization of the artic. Tons of info on trapper's life, local fauna, the race to reach the North Pole and more. Definitely worth a visit although I'd say it's more geared for adults than children.

Pretty good place to go, especially when it’s heavy snow and freezing cold outside. One thing is that some of the display introductions don’t have the English version. So I have to use the Google translator to help translate. A little bit exhausting to be honest.

Such a fascinating place! We came here to get out of an intense snowstorm in Tromso and am so glad that we did! The museum's interior gave the feeling of an old wooden ship and was full of interesting artifacts and memorabilia. We saw the explorer's clothes, personal items, journals and equipment as well as many other items related to polar exploration. There was also stuffed animals from the polar region... It made me sad to see the poor dead taxidermied seals with wide, sweet innocent eyes. Anyways, if you take the time to look at things and read the description, you will learn how incredibly brave those explorers were. I cannot even imagine. Definitely recommend if you like history!

Museums can be challenging for me. It's probably related to undiagnosed ADD. Unless it's something that I'm really into, it's snoozeville for me. We came to this museum as part of a paid excursion on our Princess Cruise to see the Northern Lights in Alta, Norway. We had already bypassed our first scheduled port in Stavanger. An odd weather pattern was forecast to bring high winds and rough seas. The captain of the ship determined that if we made our stop, we would be caught in the storm and that could delay our arrival to Alta, which was the primary purpose for the cruise known as The Search for the Northern Lights. Anyway, Tromso was our second port and I signed us up for this excursion because the other part was a visit to "The Huskey Wilderness" where we would meet sled pulling dogs. We would have been happy to completely skip this museum and go directly to the "Wilderness" to have more time with the dogs. The museum itself is quite small. Three living room sized rooms on the first floor and two large bedroom sized rooms upstairs. One set of stairs to go up and one set of stairs to come back down. Except I don't think anyone saw the signs for up and went up the down which was quite a squeeze when we're all dressed for cold weather. The museum was about life in Norway in the days of whaling, trapping and mining. There were a lot of dead stuffed animals, dead stuffed heads and even one human skeleton. There were some displays which told of the hard life that the men had, living in the cold inhospitable land with no women around. To the point where, in the darkness of night, they might turn to each other for companionship and sexual relief. The displays upstairs had more dead things and a good deal of information and photographs about the ships and men who arrived on them. As others have mentioned, much of the material was not in English. There was a multipage handout in English that you could use to figure things out, but it had to be returned before leaving the museum and we weren't interested enough to grab one. No disrespect intended. The guide that was on the tour bus with us gave us some interesting info while on the bus and also before and after leaving the museum. It wasn't possible for him to lead us through the museum to point out the highlights. There simply wouldn't have been enough room for a busload of people to stand around him comfortably and hear his comments. He did answer questions that were asked of him but only the people nearby could hear the answers. I'm sure that the museum might be of scholarly interest to those who were studying the history of the area but for us, it was a time killer. I did not take any pictures of dead things.

I was pretty disappointed by this museum. In fairness, I'm not a big fan of museums, but this one was pretty bad. We decided to come because it didn't cost very much and it seemed like it could be interesting. It started off by us buying our tickets and then the lady telling us that nothing was in English after we bought the tickets. They had a small pamphlet for us to read, but it was disjointed and didn't explain all of the exhibits. The museum was very small. There was a little bit of history that was interesting to learn about, but for the most part, it was pretty boring. None of the exhibits were interactive. It was just a lot of stuffed animals. I don't think this is worth a stop while in Tromso. There are better ways to spend your time while in the city.

A very interesting small museum in the old style pack houses used for expeditions to the arctic. Inside, you have representations of animals, trappers and the centuries of polar exploration and drama which has happened - and is sometimes still happening - in the Arctic areas at and around Spitzbergen. One of the artifacts is the reserve fuel tank of the Latham seaplane in which the explorer Roald Amundsen and his French/Norwegian team disappeared in while flying from Tromsø to Spitzbergen in 1928, to assist in the search for the airship Italia, which itself had disappeared on a journey to the North Pole. Be sure to enter the trappers cabin. The entrance is slightly hard to spot at first. I visit this museum once every few years when travelling to Tromsø, and always learn something new and interesting, and it has helped me put my tips to Spitzbergen in perspective as well.