Museum Nord, Narvik ( no, Museum Nord - Narvik) is a

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

at Narvik in Nordland,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

. The museum is an anchor point on the

European Route of Industrial Heritage The European Route of Industrial Heritage (ERIH) is a tourist route of the most important industrial heritage sites in Europe. This is a tourism industry information initiative to present a network of industrial heritage sites across Europe. The ...

History

Narvik was founded in 1902 as the railhead of the Ofoten Railway (''Ofotbanen'') at an ice-free port on the

Ofotfjorden Ofotfjord ( or ) is a fjord in Nordland county, Norway. It is an inlet of the Norwegian Sea, located about north of the Arctic Circle. The long Ofotfjord is Norway's 12th longest fjord and it is also the 18th deepest, with a maximum depth of . ...

to allow the mining corporation

LKAB Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara Aktiebolag (LKAB) is a government owned Swedish mining company. The company mines iron ore at Kiruna and at Malmberget in northern Sweden. The company was established in 1890, and has been 100% state-owned since the 195 ...

to exports a large supply of iron ore from Kiruna in neighbouring Sweden. LKAB built the

Iron Ore Line The Iron Ore Line ( sv, Malmbanan) is a long railway line between Riksgränsen and Boden in Norrbotten County, Sweden, owned by Trafikverket (the Swedish Transport Administration). The line also contains two branches, from Kiruna to Svappavaar ...

(''Malmbanan'') to the Norwegian border. The combined rail line has transported tons of iron ore from Sweden since 1902. Due to the warm currents from the Gulf Stream, the port is usually kept ice-free. The port is also naturally large to hold boats up to long and deep. The building that houses Museum Nord, Narvik was erected in 1902, as the head office of the Norwegian state railway company, ''Norges statsbaner''. It was designed by architect,

Paul Due Paul Due (13 August 1835 – 26 February 1919) was a Norwegian architect and significant contributor to the stations built by the Norwegian State Railways. Biography Paul Due was born in Kristiansand, Norway. He graduated in engineering s ...

. The museum is situated one kilometre from the harbour and contains models of significant bridges and landing stages. The museum also possesses an archive of 200,000 historic photographs. The museum tells the stories of the building of the Ofoten Railway, Swedish mining company LKAB, development of the ice-free harbour of Narvik and the rapid transformation of the town over the past century.

References

External links

Museum Nord Official Website
Museums in Nordland Industry museums in Norway Narvik European Route of Industrial Heritage Anchor Points {{Norway-museum-stub Railway museums