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In high school, I was in Nansen house. When I found out that the ship built for Fridtjof Nansen, the Fram, was in a museum, I was keen to see it.

Turned out to be a pretty amazing museum.

Fram

Much like the Vasa museum in Stockholm, the Fram museum is built around the ship, with three levels of catwalks providing different perspectives on the ship.

At the moment they also have a special exhibit on the tragic Terra Nova Antarctic expedition. As this was on the ground floor, it was my first stop.

Note Shackleton's crazy-eyes and monobrow

The exhibit went step by step through the Scott expedition. Some of it I knew already (the rivalry with Shackleton, losing to the Norwegians, Oates' last words) but there were some personal items on display, along with some interesting facts I'd not heard.

Roald Amundsen (whom the museum held up as the greatest explorer of all time, but they are a touch biased) left two letters at the pole. The first was written to the King of Norway confirming his reaching the South Pole, the second to Scott asking him to deliver the first. I guess you don't become the greatest explorer of all time without being a touch audacious.

None of these photos came out very well

The crucial difference between the Vasa museum and the Fram museum can be found at the top level where, to my great joy, I discovered I could walk aboard the Fram. And inside it. A number of the decks and cabins were open and items from the various expeditions were on display. Unfortunately they proved difficult to photograph due to the lighting used in the museum.

Good diorama or great diorama?

The Fram is a big fat tub. She is tall and not very long which, when you consider she was built to spend years in the Arctic ice, makes sense. She was designed so that under the pressure of the ice she would rise up rather than crack.

The Fram museum also had a number of exhibits on the explorers who had used the Fram. First amongst them was Fridtjof Nansen.

Penetrating stare

I did not know, before I went, how dedicated to science he was. In fact, he wanted more scientists on the first Fram expedition, but couldn't find any who were willing to put up with the conditions (years living on the ice shelf). He himself was a biologist and oceanographer who ensured that scientific discovery remained as important to the Norwegian Arctic and Antarctic programs as the race to the Poles.

I want one.
  

Say cheese!

Outside the museum stands a set of statues commemorating the first men to arrive at the South Pole. They're all facing south. It was a beautiful day in Oslo, hot and humid with clear skies. They looked out of place in their polar gear.

If you had one day in Stockholm

"You have to see the Vasa," I was told before I left Australia. "You can't miss it, if you're in Stockholm."
Nils, one of the Austrians at the hostel, put it more eloquently. "The ship is... fucking... huge."

He wasn't wrong.

My mum said she wanted some photos with me in them. Thanks for making her happy, random Swedish dad.

Nils also warned us to get to the museum early. "By ten o'clock the tour buses arrive and you have to wait in line for, like, an hour," he said. I walked in at 0840 and took a few minutes to process what I was seeing.  The ship is enormous. Sixty nine meters long and about thirty tall (the tops of the masts were removed when she sank) it fills the huge space and commands constant attention.

But it's not just the size of the ship that captures you. German and Dutch sculptors were paid to create the beautiful carvings which decorate the ship.

The gunports had lions inside each cover. No two recovered were alike.

Using thousands of samples from all over the ship, researchers have an idea of the colours used. The result would have been... gaudy. But impressive. There's a mish-mash of mythology; Roman Emperors, Bible figures, traditional Norse legend, all with their own message for onlookers.

Tasteful and subdued.

And all of it displaying lions, the symbol of power and ferocity. The massive ship in the center of the museum is impressive enough; with flags flying and painted sculptures she would have been a marvel.

Some of the ingredients of the paints

The story of the Vasa is pretty astonishing. She sank twenty minutes into her maiden voyage when a strong breeze blew her over far enough that water came in through her lower gun-ports. With four of her sails still raised she sank by the island of Beckholmen.
(Quick aside - the hostel I'm staying in has named all its rooms after islands in the lake. I'm staying in the Beckholmen room)

The actual Vasa literally never looked like this model, because this one has all the sails raised.

The reigning theory is that the Vasa was too narrow. She was trying to be too many things. The king at the time wanted a ship with two gun decks and a fast ship, meaning she was too heavy and narrow, with not enough space for ballast to prevent tipping. But as our tour guide said; lucky for us. The waters of the Baltic preserve wooden ships better than any others in the world, so now Stockholm has an amazing museum.

The queue when I left. Went all the way down the street.

You might think it strange that I've written a post about how amazing this ship/museum is and included very few photos of the ship itself. The difficulty comes from the sheer size of the thing. It was very difficult to find a shot which would show her adequately.

Shot taken from the gallery at the aft, best I could do.

I dunno, maybe see it for yourself?