Erie Expedition Arctic Museum

Located on a retired icebreaker ship, the Polar Discoverer is the Erie Expedition Arctic Museum, a museum facility dedicated to all things arctic, from the wildlife to the people to the many many expeditions to Earth’s Final Frontier.

The next room resembles an igloo within the icebreaker and is themed to the many indigenous tribes located in and around the arctic. Artifacts found themed to the Sami people of Scandanavia, the Chukchi from Russia, and three tribes of Inuit, including the Inupiat of Alaska, Inuvialuit of Canada, and Kalaallit of Greenland. Traditional clothing, tools, and even sleds from each of these cultures. Guests can check out the cultures in-depth as they walk around the museum. Each of these exhibits is presented by the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian as well as the National Museum of Norway for the Sami and Chukchi peoples.

Guests then exit the boat through an icy tunnel in the ship’s wall into the next segment of the museum, themed to the many arctic expeditions throughout history. This icy chamber features artifacts from both successful and failed expeditions, including rare artifacts from the incredibly mysterious failed expeditions of Captain Sir John Franklin. This failure is one of the biggest maritime mysteries in history where the mysterious disappearances of 129 different men with no real clues left over. In 2014, the discovery of one of Franklin’s ships the HMS Erebus was a groundbreaking lead on the mystery, and now, Disney possesses key artifacts from the shipwreck. However, this is not the only expedition featured, but also featured are the expedition to the North Pole, the first-ever trip to the location, by Robert Peary, and even artifacts from famous Viking explorer Erik the Red, who first settled on Iceland and Greenland, among others.

Finally, guests leave the cave and enter a room themed to an ice sheet with a full-screen dome ceiling that projects the night sky over the arctic. We see a small village across the way, lit up, but most of the sky projects the Northern Lights, Aurora Borealis. The room swells with ambient music and guests are free to spend as much, or as little, time as they’d like as the room creates a cool place to rest and just relax, featuring ice shelf themed benches towards the edges of the room for those just looking for a place to chill.

Guests then enter a final tunnel and exit back out the other side of the icebreaker back into the park, preventing any light from shining into the Aurora Borealis room, ruining the effect.

The tour begins in the main galley, where guests enter the ship into a gallery of ice. This section of the museum is directed towards the studies and history of ice found throughout time. While most of the displays in this chamber are faux-ice and meant to represent the different types, including ice from glaciers and sea ice, with displays on how those types of ice are formed. In the center of the chamber is a glacier made out of gunite that guests can enter to see a real-life ice core that is kept at sub-zero temperatures in a special glass case. Ice cores are harvested from within glaciers and sheet ice and encompass a wide range of years worth of ice buildup. Testing these ice cores can give scientists a fantastic insight into the history of the glacier.

Guests can then enter the next gallery which is entirely based around the wildlife of the arctic. Here, guests can check out samples from wildlife, including taxidermied specimens, casted tracks, and other artifacts. Throughout this room, you can touch real arctic fox, polar bear, and musk ox fur, as well as getting to see real walrus tusks, a real narwhal tusk, and even reindeer antlers. All of these artifacts are on loan from the United States Fish and Wildlife who collect illegally taken artifacts and redistribute them to museums and other facilities.

The next room resembles an igloo within the icebreaker and is themed to the many indigenous tribes located in and around the arctic. Artifacts found themed to the Sami people of Scandinavia, the Chukchi from Russia, and three tribes of Inuit, including the Inupiat of Alaska, Inuvialuit of Canada, and Kalaallit of Greenland. Traditional clothing, tools, and even sleds from each of these cultures. Guests can check out the cultures in-depth as they walk around the museum. Each of these exhibits is presented by the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian as well as the National Museum of Norway for the Sami and Chukchi peoples.

Guests then exit the boat through an icy tunnel in the ship’s wall into the next segment of the museum, themed to the many arctic expeditions throughout history. This icy chamber features artifacts from both successful and failed expeditions, including rare artifacts from the incredibly mysterious failed expeditions of Captain Sir John Franklin. This failure is one of the biggest maritime mysteries in history where the mysterious disappearances of 129 different men with no real clues left over. In 2014, the discovery of one of Franklin’s ships the HMS Erebus was a groundbreaking lead on the mystery, and now, Disney possesses key artifacts from the shipwreck. However, this is not the only expedition featured, but also featured are the expedition to the North Pole, the first-ever trip to the location, by Robert Peary, and even artifacts from famous Viking explorer Erik the Red, who first settled on Iceland and Greenland, among others.

Finally, guests leave the cave and enter a room themed to an ice sheet with a full-screen dome ceiling that projects the night sky over the arctic. We see a small village across the way, lit up, but most of the sky projects the Northern Lights, Aurora Borealis. The room swells with ambient music and guests are free to spend as much, or as little, time as they’d like as the room creates a cool place to rest and just relax, featuring ice shelf themed benches towards the edges of the room for those just looking for a place to chill.

Guests then enter a final tunnel and exit back out the other side of the icebreaker back into the park, preventing any light from shining into the Aurora Borealis room, ruining the effect.

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