The Ny-Ålesund Town and Mine Museum () is a museum located in

Ny-Ålesund Ny-Ålesund ("New Ålesund") is a small town in Oscar II Land in the west of the island of Spitsbergen in Svalbard. It is situated on the Brøgger peninsula (Brøggerhalvøya) and on the shore of the bay of Kongsfjorden. The company town is owned ...

, a town on

Spitsbergen Spitsbergen (; formerly known as West Spitsbergen; Norwegian language, Norwegian: ''Vest Spitsbergen'' or ''Vestspitsbergen'' , also sometimes spelled Spitzbergen) is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipel ...

, the central island of the Norwegian archipelago

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), previously known as Spitsbergen or Spitzbergen, is a Norway, Norwegian archipelago that lies at the convergence of the Arctic Ocean with the Atlantic Ocean. North of continental Europe, mainland Europe, it lies about midway be ...

in the

Arctic Ocean The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five oceanic divisions. It spans an area of approximately and is the coldest of the world's oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, ...

. While some sources claim that the more well known Svalbard Museum holds the position, the museum is the world's northernmost by virtue of Ny-Ålesund's position to the far north of the regional capital

Longyearbyen Longyearbyen (, , "Longyear Town") is the world's northernmost settlements, northernmost settlement with a population greater than 1,000, and the capital and the largest inhabited area of Svalbard. It stretches along the foot of the left bank ( ...

. Formerly a coal mining settlement until a series of serious accidents (including a final one in 1962) closed down the mine, Ny-Ålesund – which dates back to the first decades of the 20th century – has been a centre of international Arctic and polar research in recent years, housing scientific bases such as the Arctic Yellow River Station and the Himadri Station, belonging to

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

and

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

respectively. The area is administrated by Kings Bay, a government-owned company. The museum is housed in a building constructed in 1917, originally for storage. It was eventually converted into the town store in 1920. The museum was created long afterwards, in 1988, and the building has remained in use as such since. The exterior of the wooden structure has been largely preserved, due to its cultural heritage values. The interior has gone through several redevelopments and improvements. In 2009 a new information centre was opened in the building alongside the museum, providing an introduction to the environmental research going on in the area. In 2011 Kings Bay received significant funds from the Svalbard Environmental Protection Fund for a project to modernize the museum and its exhibitions, scheduled for completion in the Summer of 2014. Things featured in the remodelled museum, which is unstaffed for the most part, include exhibits on the

history of Ny-Ålesund The history of Ny-Ålesund began in 1610, when coal deposits were discovered around Kongsfjorden. Not until the 1860s were they investigated more carefully. Ålesund-based Peter Brandal bought the claims in 1916 and established the company Kin ...

since the site was first visited in the 1600s, the coal mining industry, the 1962 accident, early aviation on Svalbard, the scientific research carried out in Ny-Ålesund, and the settlement's society and culture.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ny-Alesund Town and Mine Museum History museums in Norway Industry museums in Norway Local museums in Norway Mining museums Museums in Svalbard Natural history museums in Norway Ny-Ålesund

See also

References