Terschelling - Municipal Museum

(Local Name: 't Behouden Huys) The Municipal Museum, 't Behouden Huys, is named after the hut in which the navigator and discoverer Willem Barentsz spent the winter of 1596-97. Barentsz was born on Terschelling about 1555. In 1594, while looking for the Northeast Passage to India, he discovered the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, a group of islands in the Arctic Ocean, and on his third voyage, in 1596, he discovered Spitzbergen and Bear Island. When his ship was caught in the ice he wintered on Novaya Zemlya in a makeshift hut made from timber from his ship; he survived the winter but died on the way home in the following spring. His journal was discovered in 1871.

In front of the museum are stoeppalen (piles supporting a pavement or walkway).