Arctic Circle (5 of 5): The ARKTIKUM Museum

Our last day in Rovaniemi we visit The Arktikum Museum a museum dedicated to teaching about arctic peoples, traditions, history, wild life and environment. The exhibits were great but we couldn't take pictures of most of that (we snuck a few). I was really struck by the building itself, though. Most of it is underground, practical in that cold climate and also mimicking the way nature shelters itself from the harsh winter in the north. You enter through the crecent shaped building at the back of this picture, then decend under the highway and into the grand hallway that is flanked on each side by exhibit space.
Looking down the whole length of the building, from the river to the entrance.
Chairs made from birth trees and reindeer hides. Much of the building uses these and other indigenous building materials.
We meet a polar bear,
... explore the inside of an ice chamber ...
... see a very old sled...
... hug a brown bear ...
... see some arctic fish ...
... and Kalee and Charles make an important proclamation.

There must be a traditional story about these geese and the little charter who is leading them, but we didn't hear it.



Kalee dances to some contemporary Sami folk music. We ended the day at a great restaurant at a mall next to our hotel and Kalee had perhaps her favorite moment of the whole trip - a free bouncer in the mall.