Talking North – Landline telephone in Lapland

Over the past few decades, phones have moved from telephone desks to different rooms in the house and eventually to people’s pockets. The miracle machine was first used in Lapland just six years after its invention, when an expedition brought the device to the municipality of Sodankylä in central part of Lapland.

The construction of an actual telephone network began later in the southern parts of Lapland. In the 1970s, Lapland still had homes without a telephone. Although advances in electronic communications reached Lapland with a delay, the region also served as a testing ground for new technologies. The landline era started to wane in the 1990s, when the focus gradually shifted from speaking on the phone to a more comprehensive transfer of digital data.

The exhibition shows how the need for the telephone was justified at different times and how northern conditions influenced the development of telecommunications.

The exhibition is part of the Telecommunications infrastructure, time, community, and the Arctic environment project funded by the Kone Foundation. The aim of the research project is to understand how the specific characteristics of the Arctic environment affect the telecommunications infrastructure and how the telecommunications infrastructure shapes the northern environment, communities and landscape.

Most of the photos displayed in the exhibition are from the photo collection campaign organised in the project.