Cool Place of the Day: Scott Polar Museum, Cambridge

Every day, a new place to discover or explore, from coolplaces.co.uk

Scott Polar Museum: Everything from Inuit legends to Shackleton’s doomed Antarctic expedition

It’s ‘Museums at Night’ this week, an annual event when museums and galleries all over the country open their doors to visitors in the evening and sometimes all night for a series of special events.

Needless to say, it’s a good time to visit a collection that you’ve always meant to see but never got around to, and nowhere is this more true than at the Scott Polar Museum in Cambridge, where they are hosting ‘Lucky 13?’ on Friday 13 May – an adult storytelling event where you can spend the evening listening to stirring tales of derring-do and adventure around the world: everything from Inuit legends to the story of Shackleton’s doomed Antarctic expedition of 1914.

Of course you’ll want to see the museum too while you’re here, and its collection is a marvel – reopened after renovation in 2010, it’s a gem of a museum that will make you wonder why you never visited before. There are Ernest Shackleton’s evacuation instructions stained by the blubber stove, the final letters of Captain Scott and the sleeping bag used by Captain Oates before his sacrificial walk into an Antarctic blizzard.

The museum also displays the art of native Inuit hunters, information on those who both live and explore in the harsh polar environments and has a small cinema.

Martin Dunford is Publisher of Cool Places, a new website from the creators of Rough Guides and Cool Camping, suggesting the best places to stay, eat, drink and shop in Britain (coolplaces.co.uk)