Photographer, artist, Queen.
Her Majesty Queen Sonja of Norway always has a full schedule, But she took time for a special flight to New York to launch the future direction of the Hurtigruten cruise line as the expedition ship MS Fram readied to sail to Canada.
The company is partnering with the Queen Sonja Print Awards to make the polar exploration ship MS Roald Amundsen “the ship of graphic art,” she said at a shipboard reception. The Queen is quite an artist and printmaker herself and some of her works based on scenes in Norway’s Arctic will be among the 600 pieces ranging from watercolors to woodcuts in the ship that launches in the spring of 2019.
It’s part of a tradition for Hurtigruten—whose name means express route– founded in 1893 to carry passengers to Norway’s remote western and northern coasts and has since expanded to explore the world. But in a sense the announcement marks a new future direction for Hurtigruten.
The 530-passenger Amundsen is the first of a coming duo of new ships designed to explore Antarctica and the Arctic–from Norway to the Northwest Passage. The new ship will be bigger than the 14 ships currently in the company’s fleet and have a class 6 ice rating, able to navigate in heavy ice floes. The design features state of the art green technology including hybrid battery power system for environmental sustainability.
To keep the ship entertaining on long voyages, the Norwegian line is harkening back to the days of the Viking ships that were decorated with wood carvings. Leif Eriksson’s boats that visited Newfoundland 1,000 years ago were decorated with carvings of dragons, flowers, and animals.
A millennium later, Hurtigruten plans to turn the Amundsen and sister ship MS Fridtjof Nansen into floating art galleries, CEO Daniel Skjeldam said. In the company’s partnership with the Queen Sonja Print Awards, the works of 20 young artists and the Queen herself will include multiple prints in all suites and cabins and public spaces including restaurants stairs and corridors.
Most will be available for purchase by guests, who want to take a memento of their journey home, he added.
“In the year 1000: Leif Eriksson discovered America from his Viking ship decorated with woodcarvings. In 2019: MS Roald Amundsen – the ship of graphic art – will sail to where it all started: Svalbard and its oceans,” Queen Sonja said. “The circle is closed.”
