Sandefjordmuseene is a museum dedicated to the Whaling Industry

Whaling in Norway

Whaling in Norway involves the hunting of the Minke whale for the purpose of using the whale meat for human consumption, generally in Northern Norway. This hunting has occurred since the early 20th Century, and some still continue the practice in the modern day.- History :Norwegian whaling has a...

 located in Sandefjord

Sandefjord

is a city and municipality in Vestfold county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Sandefjord. The municipality of Sandefjord was established on 1 January 1838...

, Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

. It is the only specialized museum on the subject of whales and whaling in Europe.

History

Sandefjordmuseene was inaugurated as a donation from Consul Lars Christensen

Lars Christensen

Lars Christensen was a Norwegian shipowner and whaling magnate with a keen interest in the exploration of Antarctica.-Career:...

, the son of Norwegian shipyard and ship owner, Christen Christensen.
Its full name is Commander Christen Christensen's Whaling Museum, also called The Sandefjord Whaling Museum . When it opened in 1917 the museum building was one of the first original museum buildings in Norway. Lars Christensen had two main goals when opening the museum; to inform the public about the Antarctic

Antarctic

The Antarctic is the region around the Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica and the ice shelves, waters and island territories in the Southern Ocean situated south of the Antarctic Convergence...

 and its fauna and animal life, as it was a relatively unknown continent at the time, and to tell the story of whaling

Whaling

Whaling is the hunting of whales mainly for meat and oil. Its earliest forms date to at least 3000 BC. Various coastal communities have long histories of sustenance whaling and harvesting beached whales...

 as an industry.

Since its opening, the museum has experienced some major changes including an expansion in 1981. Today, the Whaling Museum’s aim is to be a central institution in the presentation of a wide range of material connected to the history of whaling as well as the ecology and management of whales and their habitat. The museum's photo collection consists of 150,000 photographs around 30,000 of which are related to whaling. The museum is host to a host of international conferences related to marine life and to whales. Exhibits include Southern Actor

Southern Actor

Southern Actor is a former whale catcher, currently a museum ship based in Sandefjord, Norway and owned by Sandefjord Museum.Southern Actor was built in 1950 for the whaling company Christian Salvesen Ltd in Leith, Scotland. Many of Salvesen's employees were Norwegian mostly from Vestfold...

, a restored whale catcher built in 1950, which is now a museum ship

Museum ship

A museum ship, or sometimes memorial ship, is a ship that has been preserved and converted into a museum open to the public, for educational or memorial purposes...

open to the public. The former whale ship is both a living museum and a passenger ship.

Other sources

• Wexelsen, Einar (1993) Vel blåst! Kommandør Chr. Christensens Hvalfangstmuseum 75 år (Sandefjord: Hvalfangstmuseets publikasjon nr. 28)

External links

• Museum's website