The folk museum

Just across the bay on the peninsula of Bygdøy are a cluster of museums in a nice neighborhood.

Viking Ship Museum
Norsk Folkemuseum
Kon-Tiki Museum
Polar Ship Fram
Norwegian Maritime Museum
Holocaust Center

The peninsula was most easily reached by crossing the Oslo fjord by ferry. The boat makes 5-6 stops in it's circuit and accepted the 1-hour t-bane passes I'd been using on the subway which meant we could take the t-bane to the bay and then use the same ticket for the ferry.

Given our choice of museums, seeing the viking ships was the obvious first choice but now there was time to visit another, we had some difficulty. Eventually it came down to the Polar Ship Fram and the Norsk Folkemuseum and we decided to try the Folkemuseum on Marie's recommendation.

In retrospect we probably shouldn't have chosen to visit an outdoor museum in the rain but it kept the crowds away and in our defense we didn't know how big the place was. The Norsk Folkmuseum is about the size of 3-4 city blocks and contains a hundred(?) buildings. Most of the buildings were locked or barricaded forcing visitors to lean over doorways or peer through chinks in the walls.

The museum grounds contain dwellings from various eras in Norway's history. The sami were the indigenous tribes of the area and they had examples of their branch and mud huts and their woven clothing and antler crafts. The more contemporary homes had sod roofs and stone ramps leading into the barns - a common thing in Norway. Most of the houses had weird overhanging sides and were raised up over large empty spaces. I guess this architecture has something to do with the excessive snowfall but it could have been one of those inexplicable cultural things.

Some of the buildings were beautiful.

Along the path there were several old stone and iron road markers. These often had contemporary signs posted nearby with the date and description of these markers. In a couple hundred years, they'll install another sign pointing to the sign that points to the iron road sign. I suspect a conspiracy among sign-makers ...

In the center of the museum area was a small stables and electric fenced area with a pair of strange horses. This breed is common in Norway.

Many of the buildings were closed with signs posted that if we had come later in the season we could have watched people blowing glass and making pottery.

In an example house from the 1950's a museum worker was making tea for some tourists on the 1950's era stove and the kids were playing with one of the 1950's era's electric toys. Another couple was already there and we overheard them saying, "my grandmother has that exact refrigerator!"

I took pictures in the museum of household appliances but I wasn't sure why.

The most confusing and surreal museum display was a large multistory house meant to represent contemporary Norwegian culture from the 1990's or 2000's. I think they wanted to highlight the multicultural roots of the city but it was just a weird experience - like you were wandering through someone's living rooms.

The first thing we noticed on entering the building was the distant sounds of bollywood music. The bottom floor contained a small kitchen partitioned off with plexiglass and a nondescript bedroom. The next floor had a small studio apartment setup as if a photojournalist lived there and across the hall was a larger and more posh apartment. The sounds of bollywood music grew louder.

On the third floor we entered the imaginary Pakistani's family apartment where a tv was blaring a bollywood movie and the computer on the desk kept refreshing a 'paki-net' webpage. Surreal.

Video

This two story outhouse seems like a bad idea.

Tucked under the stairs in this building was a low door and a long corridor leading to a bench with a hole cut in it. The hole was covered but it was obviously a bathroom. Sitting on the throne the corridor stretched 20 feet to the far door. We took pictures to illustrate what it would be like to have your brother barge in while on the toilet.

This small wooden house was made by a rich farmer for his employer Chamberlain Cappelan. The farmer hired the most well known rose painter from Telemark to decorate the interior. The custom in Telemark is to paint every surface in the home with elaborate decorations and the small shack was impressive.

Stepping into the house, you enter a plexiglass cage used to protect the paintings. The transition from the outdoor daylight to the dim room and the reflection of the outside light from every surface was as disorientating as stepping into a diamond. Ja entered first and laughed at my reaction on stepping inside.

One of the last of many exhibits of this museum was a collection of Norwegian folk-art. This was a huge installation 80% of which was a collection of elaborately carved and painted drinking vessels. There were ladles to scoop ale, buckets to hold ale, barrels to make ale, drinking cups of all shapes and sizes, and just about every other decorated wooden element of unknown use had something to do with imbibing alcohol.

This collection also contained many pained wooden boxes, elaborately carved with supernatural scenes or demons. I liked these most of all. What I wouldn't give to have a chest with a painted carving of tiamat on the side...

I also liked this diorama explaining the how important a hunters gun was to him.

Hunting arms were especially important and surrounded by many superstitions. It was crucial that the long gun functioned and hit well on the first shot, especially when hunting predators like bears. If it missed, the gun had to be tossed aside and the animal had to be attacked with a spear, a knife, or with the hunter's bare fists.

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A "cursed" long gun that did not hit could be restored by pulling a viper through the barrel, or shooting it out the barrel with powder. One could also clean it with hot bird's blood or urinate on it when nobody was looking.

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A hunter on his way to hunt was subject to many dangerous forces. If he for example met a woman, he could just give up hunting that day.

In another wing of the facility was an ancient church filled with faded and dusty wooden idols and painted cherubs. The church had motion detectors hidden on the floor, wooden models of ships hanging from the ceiling and a bewildering array of delicate and ancient wooden religious paraphenalia. The only view a visitor had of this place was from a couple of balconies along one side of the room.