The Ny-Ålesund Town and Mine Museum ( no, Ny-Ålesund By- og Gruvemuseum) is a museum located in

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

, a town on

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

, the central island of the

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe *Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway *Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including the ...

archipelago

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it is about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group range ...

in the

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

. While some sources claim that the more well known

Svalbard Museum The Svalbard Museum is a museum in Longyearbyen, the largest town in the Svalbard archipelago. The museum displays artifacts from the history of Svalbard since its settlement, and exhibits of local plants and animals. Its exhibitions describe th ...

holds the position, the museum is the world's northernmost such by virtue of Ny-Ålesund's position to the far north of the regional capital

Longyearbyen Longyearbyen (, locally �lɔ̀ŋjɑrˌbyːən "The Longyear Town") is the world's northernmost settlement with a population greater than 1,000 and the largest inhabited area of Svalbard, Norway. 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 The Arctic Yellow River Station () was established by the Polar Research Institute of China in Ny-Ålesund, on Svalbard, in 2003. Scientists at the station conducted research into the Aurora Borealis and microbes in the ice-pack, glacier moni ...

and the Himadri Station, belonging to

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

and

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

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 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