Prime Minister Erna Solberg handed out the Asker municipality’s cultural prize on Saturday to Jan Wanggaard and Tandberg Eiendom for having retrieved Maud’s polar vessel back to Norway.
Maud was brought home in August last year to Vollen in Asker after having been partially sunken in the ice in Cambridge Bay in Canada since 1930.
Maud, which was built in Vollen 102 years ago, was the boat that Roald Amundsen used for his expedition through the Northeast Passage from 1918 to 1920.
From 1921 to 1925, the ship drifted around the ice north of East Siberia under Oscar Wistings command, and was later sold to a Canadian company that used it for shipping along the northwest coast of the United States and Canada.
‘’It is great for us to get such an award. Last year we received the people’s recognition when thousands were present during Maud’s return’’ said Espen Tandberg of Tandberg Eiendom who financed and backed the project of raising and bringing the ship back to Asker.
© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
