The Sámi Museum also has a summer destination at the Skolt Sámi Cultural Centre in Sevettijärvi, where the Skolt Sámi Heritage House is located. The Heritage House and the Open-Air Museum on its grounds contain information on Skolt Sámi history and display the living and construction options from two different eras. There’s also a small museum shop at the Skolt Sámi Heritage House
The Skolt Sámi Heritage House comprises an authentic Koltta homestead and its outbuilding. The exhibition located inside the house tells about the life of the Skolt Sámi in the past and now. There is an Open-Air Museum on the grounds of the Heritage House. The buildings have been built on the basis of literary sources and word of mouth. The displays include homes, a storehouse, a smoke sauna and a traditional Skolt Sámi root sewn boat.
Read more on the Skolt Sámi Heritage House
See the online exhibition on the Skolt Sámi
Free admission
Summer 2024 opening hours: From June 25th untill September 28th, Tue-Sat 11-17, closed on Sun and Mon.
Contact
Nuõrttsaa’mi Ä’rbbvuõttpõrtt – Skolt Sámi Heritage House
Sevettijärventie 9041, 99930 SEVETTIJÄRVI
tel. +358 (0)400 373015
email: kolttaperinnetalo(at)samimuseum.fi
Our Open-Air Museum has much to view. The museum area’s trail is approximately 800-metres-long and in the shape of a reindeer herder’s lasso. Along the trail visitors can view around 50 buildings and structures, which are grouped by their cultural area and their intended use. The displays tell about the cultural heritage, architectural heritage and livelihoods of Finland’s three Sámi cultures.
The Open-Air Museum’s trail is accessible by wheelchair and with a pram in summer and autumn. The area is protected under the Antiquities Act. Visitors should only walk along marked and sheltered trails.
Read more about the Open-Air Museum and its exhibition or book a guided tour.
Opening hours
The Open-Air Museum is open according to the Sámi Museum’s opening hours. At other times, you can view the area, if weather conditions allow for this, but the buildings are closed due to security.
If you visit the Open-Air Museum in winter, you should take into consideration the prevailing conditions and proper clothing. Tips on suitable clothing for winter time on the Visit Finland website.
Mobile guide
We have designed basic signposts for the Open-Air Museum to supplement the mobile guide. These include information on the Open-Air Museum’s history and its different displays. The mobile guide’s archive photos, videos and recordings bring the 12 Open-Air Museum displays to life. We have marked the displays with signposts with the QR code for the specific display’s materials.
The guide is available in Northern Sámi, Finnish and English. Have a look at the Open-Air Museum’s mobile guide.
Our permanent exhibition links Sámi culture and northern nature to one another forming one whole, which offers a vivid and visual experience as well as an abundance of information. The Sámi Museum and the Nature Centre have worked together to produce the permanent exhibition.
The joint exhibition by the Sámi Museum and the Northern Lapland Nature Centre Siida, Enâmeh láá mii párnááh – “These lands are our children” explains and interprets the layers of the landscape through the Sámi concept of cultural environment. According to it, nature and culture are closely linked. The landscape around us is also formed over millions of years from an entity shaped by nature.
Our exhibition was named after a poem written by Inari Sámi Matti Morottaja.
In the Sámi cultural environment, connections to the land and the environment are built through memories and traditions. The knowledge of Sámi traditions has been carried in people’s memory from one generation to another through changes in nature and society. In the cultural contents of the exhibition, we consider how the past lives in us. A diverse heritage from different eras lives in all of us, allowing us to adapt to changes around us.
In the nature section of the exhibition, we encourage our guests to reflect on changes in our climate and what will happen to the climate in the future. The exhibition highlights climate history after the last Ice Age and speculates what will happen to the climate in the future. Nature topics are discussed through the conservation areas of Northern Lapland, their different habitat types, and the species living in them.
We care for biodiversity and the cultural heritage, and our work will bear fruit across generations.
The renewal of the cultural section of the exhibition is financed by Kone Foundation, the Finnish Cultural Foundation/Museum Vision, Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation, Interreg Nord and Lapin Liitto. Metsähallitus received funding for the nature section of the exhibition from the supplementary state budget.
