Træna Museum

An interesting local museum on the island Træna covering history going back 9000 years. The exhibition Træna Hawaii is telling the story of a brother emigrating to Hawaii in the late 1890 and his sister who stayed on Træna. They never met, but..

The Museum is an old building located in the center of Træna, close to ferry and express boat.  The museum covers many themes.  The finding of items going 9000 years back which prooves that Træna is Norways oldest fishing community, telling the history of Træna Rock Festival and much more.  The museum has regular openings hours from mid June to mid August.  

Træna Hawaii

In 1898, Theodor Holmen leaves his home in Træna Municipality to begin a journey which took him to Honolulu, Hawaii. Theodor emigrated just like hundreds of thousands of other Norwegians in the 19th century and he never returned to his childhood home.

Three years after his departure, his little sister Alma is born. Alma grows up in Træna and lives here until her death in 1997. Thus, the two siblings never meet, but in 1925 Alma receives a camera in the mail. sender: Theodor Holmen, Honolulu, Hawaii.

Alma becomes a self-taught photographer, and learns how to develop and make copies of her own phtotographs, all on her own. She documents life on the islands, takes portraits of the people of Træna and sends the photographs to her brother in Hawaii, 10 000 nautical miles away. Their exchange of letters and photographs is a personal documentation of the entire 20th century, portrayed from two islands on opposite sides of the earth.

Their stories include migration, economical change, the wall street crash, the first and second world war and industrialization. When Alma passes away in 1997, the internet has just been made available, and today, 18 years later, we can shoot photographs and send around the globe in an instant. With project Træna-Hawaii we wish to preserve the story and tell the story about Alma and Theodor to a wider audience. We also want to produce a new and updated photography-project conveying all the people from Træna today, in Alma Sandøys spirit.

You can see some of the photos taken by Alma here, and you can read the letters from Theodor (currently only in Norwegian). You can also see all of the re-digitalised photographs on Flickr.

The source of this text (about Træna Hawaii) is found on the web page www.tenktraena.no.  A web page worth visiting before you visit Træna.