As there are in small towns across the island, in Borgarnes, on Iceland’s Snaefellsnes peninsula, there is a local folk history museum. They are all much the same, with a reproduced turf house, a bunch of taxidermied native animals and obsolete accoutrements of farmlife. My two kids and I passed through this one in about half an hour, even with the guided tour. Then, on the way out, the kids spotted a wooden box pushed against a wall. It was filled with bones, horns, and seashells. The guide explained that children in the old days didn’t get toys from a store, they played with what they could find. My kids played with the items in the box for nearly an hour before I finally dragged them out of the museum as it was closing.
There is a war museum on the island of Terceira in the Azores. It seems a little strange for such a peaceful-feeling island to have a war museum. But Portugal was once an empire and the Azores are strategically located. The museum was interesting and tasteful – relating the facts without glamorizing them. Except for this office. I don’t remember what information it was supposed to relate. But the display gave me a sort of Hogwarts feeling. I want an office filled with floating books like this.
A lot of people like folk museums for their down-to-earth “what life was like in the old days” approach to history. For me, the old days in question are never old enough. But when you’re traveling with a kid, the hands-on outdoor folk museum is kind of a no-brainer. Plus, the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History (Norsk Folkemuseum) in Oslo has a stave church. Since we were on Bygdøy anyway, that was enough to merit a quick visit. Little did I know they’d have to push us out the door at closing time.
The Draw
The Norwegian folk museum is an open-air museum with 160 historic buildings, mostly built in the last 500 years. One exception is the Gol Stave Church, a main attraction at the museum that was built in the village of Gol sometime around 1200. There are also indoor exhibits featuring Norwegian folk costumes, folk art, church art and Sami culture. They offer hands-on activities for children, and docents in period dress demonstrate old skills and explain aspects of life in different epochs. My daughter requested participatory art experiences on our itinerary, and this sounded like the kind of museum where you might get to try working at a loom or braiding rope.
The Reality
The reality of Norway’s hard divide between high season and off season with no shoulder in between meant that there were no costumed docents walking around or doing demonstrations. The majority of the buildings were locked up and only visible from the outside or, if you were tall enough, by peeking through a window. Surprisingly, running around on a sunny spring day peeking into windows had tremendous appeal to my ten-year-old. All the patience she extended to me at the Viking Ship Museum was now repaid, as she attempted to peek into every single one of the 160 historic buildings onsite.
The promised petting zoo of farm animals appeared deserted, and to my eyes, the dozens of elevated, turf-roofed farm buildings quickly blurred together. But my daughter was having a blast, stopping to photograph architectural details on nearly identical buildings and cataloguing the contents observed through dirty windows. We both found the apartment buildings where each unit was decorated in the style of a different decade entertaining. And the stave church, well, it deserves its own subheading. By the time we got to the indoor exhibits there were only a few minutes left to closing. We had to breeze past exhibits on folk art, clothing, and Sami culture. Fortunately these overlapped a lot with exhibits at our own Nordic Heritage Museum back home, so we didn’t miss too much.
Gol Stave Church
You may have noticed that I am irreligious. I have to work at being open-minded enough to stay on the polite side of antireligious. I do appreciate architecture, but churches don’t usually do it for me. (Exceptions include St. Stephen’s in Vienna and the chapel at Seattle U, both of which I can appreciate for purely aesthetic reasons).
I say all this is to set up what a tremendous surprise it was to walk inside the tiny wooden Gol stave church and feel something. Yes, of course it was pretty. But there really was a special atmosphere inside that little 13th century village church. Only one other visitor entered while we were there. She stopped short just inside the door, said, “Wow,” and quickly dropped to the floor to take a picture of the roof.
Medieval cathedrals in mainland Europe awe with their immensity. But this tiny church creates the same sense of smallness inside a vast universe using a very tall, narrow space. It almost felt like standing inside a concentrated column of energy.
Unexpected Highs
One of my favorite things about travel is how you’re guaranteed to have moments you’ll never forget, but they are almost never the ones you planned for. I never expected to have a spiritual moment in a church of all places. And I never thought that running around looking in the windows of old buildings would keep my 10-year-old occupied in sheer delight for a whole afternoon. I can only imagine what highs we might have achieved if all the activities I was expecting had been available. But then again, maybe the magic lay in having acres of old Norway all to ourselves.
On our second day in Oslo, we visited the Viking Ship Museum (Vikingskipshuset) on the Bygdøy peninsula. When we planned our Norway itinerary, my daughter and I both picked a couple of must-see items that we would accomplish no matter what. The Viking Ship Museum was my first pick. I’ve been to several exhibits of authentic Viking-age artifacts, but boats are (ironically) not so mobile. So the closest I’d gotten to a real Viking ship was the Gokstad reproduction at Viking World in Iceland. Íslendingur is awesome, but the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo displays the actual Gokstad ship.
Getting There
It’s worth just dedicating an entire day to museums on Bygdøy (or two, since most museums seem to only be open from 10-4 and you can’t fit them all in that window). Bygdøy is called an island, but it’s really a peninsula. You can just drive or take the bus to get there. But it’s more fun (and faster) to take the ferry from the downtown Oslo harbor.
We caught the second ferry of the day at City Hall Pier 3
(tickets were free with our Oslo Passes) and got off at the Dronningen stop.
From there it was about a 10-minute walk to the museum through a quiet
neighborhood of fancy houses.
Oseberg Ship
The Viking Ship Museum houses three authentic Viking ships that were used to bury their wealthy owners together with the grave goods contained in the ships. The Oseberg ship is the largest of the three and arguably the finest Viking Age find (a farmer dug into it in 1903). Built in Norway around 820 A.D., the clinker-built oak ship had room for 30 oarsmen and was richly ornamented.
Detail, Oseberg ship bow
The Oseberg ship probably sailed along the coast and up rivers in Southern Norway before being pulled ashore to bury two high-ranking women. One was in her fifties and the other was in her seventies. They were buried on a bed in the ship, along with the richest trove of Viking era grave goods ever found. Whoever they were, at least one of them was extremely important. The grave goods include a functional sled and a highly ornamented horse cart. The Oseberg ship is also notable for being the source of most of the textile remains from the Viking age.
Oseberg ship
Gokstad Ship
In 1879 two teenagers dug into “The King’s Mound” on their farm to see if there was really anything buried there. They discovered the grave of a Viking king (or an important chieftain, at least) who was buried around 900 A.D. The chieftain was not as wealthy as the Oseberg women, but his burial gifts were still extensive, including shields, small boats, and exotic animals. Compared to Oseberg, the ship is less extravagant in ornamentation, but bigger in size.
It was used for ocean voyages until the chieftain was killed in battle. (This is why they modeled Íslendingur after Gokstad instead of the more famous Oseberg.) Having walked around on its replica in Iceland made the relatively plain Gokstad ship more interesting. It was easier to imaging the ship fitted out with sails and shields, ready to cross the ocean and devastate monasteries.
Tune Ship
A farmer found the Tune ship in 1867. It was the first Viking ship to be excavated and is still one of the best-preserved Viking ships in the world. But compared to the other two it mostly serves to illustrate just how amazing the Oseberg and Gokstad ships really are. Not only is the ship itself less complete, but the grave was plundered and the remaining goods are not in great condition.
All This and More
Even though I’ve already seen a lot of Viking artifacts, the
items at the Viking Ship Museum are quite unusual. There wasn’t a lot of
overlap with other exhibits, so I still felt like I learned a lot – for example,
I always wondered what Viking shoes looked like, and now I know. There were several
documentaries on loop in the museum, including one about textiles, which was
all new information for me.
A normal person with only a passing interest in the Viking
age would probably be satisfied with half an hour in the museum. But I had to
read every single plaque and watch every film in its entirety. We spent well
over two hours there, not counting the gift ship, where many items were
purchased. I have no regrets.
A Penny Saved
We visited the museum using our Oslo Passes, which more than
paid for themselves on our museum-focused itinerary. But if you’re only going
to visit a couple of museums, your ticket from the Viking Ship Museum grants
free entry to the Historical Museum,
Norway’s largest collection of historical artifacts, including Viking
treasures, Egyptian mummies and a multitude of ethnographic exhibitions, within
48 hours.
If I was traveling with anyone else, I probably would not have gone there. But since my companion was a 10-year-old who asked for “chances to make art” for her special trip to Norway, the International Children’s Art Museum (Det Internasjonale Barnekunstmuseet) in Oslo was the first stop on our itinerary. I’m not going to lie. I didn’t expect much. People always underestimate kids.
The International Children’s Art Museum
Nearly every city has a children’s museum these days, and
sometimes art museums have sections or special exhibits for children. But as
far as I know, the International Children’s Art Museum in Oslo is the only art
museum in the world dedicated entirely to children. Even if it is not, this museum
is still unique because it’s not just showing art to children, it’s showing art by
children.
Established in 1986 by film director Rafael Goldin and his
wife, Dr. Alla Goldin, the museum (colloquially known as Barnekunst) collects,
preserves, and displays art by children. They have a massive collection of art
from over 180 countries. Only a small fraction of it is on display at any given
time in the museum, a large converted house in a quiet suburban neighborhood of
Oslo that houses the embassies of many small nations.
The Museum Experience
Nearly every inch of the big, old house is covered in art.
Some of it is original works on small, framed pieces of paper. Some of the
pieces have been blown up and printed on giant posters for better viewing. One
small room houses sculptures while other rooms are dedicated to rotating themed
exhibitions and displays from the permanent collection. The top floor straddles
the line between wonderland and creepy, with red walls and a huge collection of
dolls from around the world. The basement houses a gift shop and work room
where children can create their own art and participate in regularly held weekend
workshops.
Barnekunst was our first stop in Oslo after picking up our Bergen Cards at the tourist information center. We arrived in the late morning of an April Tuesday, just as some others were leaving. Aside from the woman working the front desk, they were the only other people we saw during our visit. You could easily view the entire museum in half an hour, but to really take it all in, you have move slowly. We ended up staying nearly three hours.
We left our shoes in the cubbies by the door and explored
the museum in our socks. The friendly staff person at the front desk gave us a worksheet
with a scavenger hunt of images from the museum – if you found them all, you
could get a prize. Starting from the basement, we worked our way slowly through
rooms, ending in the uncanny doll room. Along the way, we found a few of the scavenger
hunt items and marveled in awe at the skill of some young artists.
Then we worked our bay back down, looking more closely for the ones we missed. Several of the images on the worksheet were close-up details of larger works and gave us a real challenge. We had to get hints from the lady at the desk to find the last two.
Inspired, my daughter spent nearly an hour at the end of our visit drawing a picture in the work room. She drew a portrait of a gender-fluid child. Since I hadn’t noticed gender as a theme in the museum, I asked her what inspired the choice. She said she couldn’t decide whether to draw a girl or a boy, then realized it didn’t have to be one or the other. Again, I was reminded that youth is not the same as ignorance.
The Art
On our first pass through the museum, we were mostly struck
by the talented kids. We marveled at the technical skill and maturity of some
of the drawings relative to the age of the artist. My daughter’s ego took a few
hits as she repeatedly commented, “That person is my age,” or “That was done by
someone younger than me.”
But as we went back through more slowly, I began to pay more
attention to the way the work was grouped. Not all of it was technically
superior. Some 13-year-olds’ pictures looked like first grade scribbles, and after
a while, you even began to see that overall, a certain level of skill and
detail generally matched up with age.
But you also began to notice the way geography tended to influence style. Children from South Asia and Africa tended to use brighter colors, art in a cartoon style was more likely to be from East Asia. Regardless of technique or style, the pictures often revealed the inner workings of the artist’s mind. Whether it was a stick figure that somehow captured the anguish of getting lost or an impressionistic painting of a father’s yelling face, these images had just as much emotional weight as the work hanging in other museums.
The Impact
Sometimes the choice of subject matter revealed that childhood
is not the uniformly naïve and unburdened experience adults like to imagine.
Among the robots and superheroes and spaceships were also pictures of farm work,
hunting for food or hauling water, and anxiety for the future. Individual works
were sometimes very compelling, and sometimes Regardless of whether an
individual works was compelling of itself or became so through the careful
curation and context of museum display, the end result was as effective as any
exhibition of professional works. Perhaps it was even more so for being so
unexpected.
When we were done, my daughter got to pick a prize. She chose a postcard of one of the paintings that I had liked. It sits on my desk now as a reminder that anyone can make good art.
