Polar Ship Museum FRAM

Right next to the Kon-Tiki Museum is the FRAM Museum - dedicated to “the strongest ship in the world - Fram.” This Norwegian schooner was built in 1892 and was used in the most important polar expeditions. During the Fridtjof Nansen expedition to the North Pole (in 1893-1896) it sailed along the coast of Russia to the New Siberian Islands. There it was deliberately frozen into the ice and drifted with it across the Arctic Ocean. Nansen and one companion left the ship and got within a few degrees of the pole on skis. On another trip, Otto Sverdrup took FRAM in 1898-1902. He circumnavigated Greenland from the south and west and reached the far northern Canadian island of Ellesmere.

The ship was used by Roald Amundsen in the years 1910-1912 for sailing to the coast of Antarctica, from where he departed on foot in a deadly race to the South Pole against the Englishman Robert Scott. Amundsen won, he was the first to reach it on 14 December 1911. Scott arrived there a month later and died on the way back. This fascinating story and others describing the discovery of the Arctic and Antarctic are presented in an interesting exhibition, richly illustrated with photographs, maps and memorabilia of the polar explorers. The biggest attraction is the ship “Fram”, located in the middle of the building. You can enter it and see what the life of the great travelers looked like.

The hall is dimly lit with a blue glow. Around the building are balconies with exhibits, connected by stairs. To get on the ship you have to climb the stairs to the highest balcony and from there use a footbridge to get on board the vessel.
On the ship you can see all the accessories, you can go below and see what the engine room, the sailors' cabins and their equipment looked like.

The most surprising was the small room of the onboard doctor, which was equipped with all the necessary on-board medical devices. So he had forceps to pull teeth and a saw to cut bone (if someone needed a limb amputated).

Fun fact: Fram was designed and built by shipbuilder Colin Archer. Its hull is wide, flat and rounded, with almost no keel. Thanks to this, the pressing ice did not crush the ship but pushed it upwards. The price was that it rolled a lot in rough seas.

The FRAM Museum is definitely the most beautiful museum we visited that day and we would highly recommend it to all visitors to Oslo.

And here’s a video of our visit:

Regular price: NOK 100 per adult, NOK 40 for children, and a family ticket (2 + 3) costs NOK 200.