This truly is...Polaria is part of Tromos's Polar Environmental Centre. It is a museum with two live seals, touch pools, fish tanks, stuffed birds and a movie theatre featuring a 14 minute film about Svalbard: a group of islands bewteen Norway and the North Pole. The film reminds me of photos of Devon Island in Nunavut and Banks Island in the NWT. It illustrates the geographical and wildlife similarities among circumpolar countries.
I also visited the Polar Museum. This museum pays homage to polar explorer Roald Amundsen, amung other Norwegian explorers. Amundsen goes down in the history as the first person to successfully sail from east to west through the Northwest Passage in 1906. Not to be confused with Henry Larsen who captained the St. Roch through the passage from west to east in 1942. Dare I say, Amundsen is to Norway as Gretzky is to Canada:a national hero. I am open to being corrected.Fantastic artifacts in this creaky old building, once a "bonded" warehouse meaning it was a holding place for imported goods. Artifacts of interest include a well used ivory toothbrush, an antiquated instrument for measuring ocean currents and medicine chests like this one.
Another exhibit of interest was the trapper's cabin, complete with trappers and barking dogs. These cabins were found on Svalbard island.
Within the Polar Museum, there are enough stuffed and skinned polar bears, seals and musk ox to refurbish all 33 airports in the NWT (for those of you unfamiliar with northern airports, they often have stuffed northern wildlife in the waiting areas).
Loved the hunter/trapper mannequins.
Although, I lacked the kroners to purchase seal skin products, several interesting items were for sale. G-string panties anyone?
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