[1] The building is also a popular culture destination and venue for meetings and conferences and has a cafe and library to serve the customers.

Two separate exhibitions operate at Arktikum: the Arctic Center, and the regional museum of Lapland, founded in 1975.

Plenty of local natural materials have been used in the building: the floors are made from Perttaus granite – the hardest type available in Finland – and from lime-washed Lapland pine.

The most visible part of the museum, its glass corridor, is 172 metres long in all and it is bisected by the 30-metre wide Kittilä highway.

The exhibition space is sheltered below the ground, mimicking the way animals in the North take cover from the harsh, cold winter by burrowing under the snow.