Igarka (Russian: Ига́рка) is a town in Turukhansky District of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located 163 kilometers (101 mi) north of the Arctic Circle.

[8] Timber was logged in the basin of the Yenisei River, floated to Igarka where it was processed, and then exported to various distribution centers.

[8] The town's construction was directed by Boris Lavrov [ru] who envisioned Igarka as an ideal Soviet Arctic city.

Further development was suspended due to World War II, but resumed in the late 1940s when Igarka was envisioned as a naval port.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the sawmill was not viable in the new free-market environment due to the high costs associated with the harsh climate conditions and long distances to the buyers.

[8] Increasing mean annual air temperatures led to permafrost thaw which destabilized and structurally impaired many buildings in the town.

To reduce maintenance and utility costs of such buildings, the town demolished and controlled burned the historic district of mainly wooden houses in the mid-2000s.

[17] The museum is located in the former geocryological lab founded in 1930 by the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union.