Ice Hotels

Buildings made of ice and snow, rebuilt every winter and gone by spring.

An ice hotel is a building with a deliberate expiry date. It is cut or sprayed from river ice and snow in late autumn, opened for a season measured in weeks, and returned to water when the thaw arrives.

That cycle governs everything else: the rooms are re-authored annually, often by invited artists; the warm functions — dining, sauna, washing — sit in permanent buildings nearby; and guests are briefed before they sleep, because sleeping below freezing is a technique.

Icehotel

Jukkasjärvi, Sweden

The original of the type. Since 1989 a hotel has been built each winter on the bank of the Torne River from ice harvested out of that same river, opened in December, and allowed to melt back into it in spring.

Artists are invited to design individual art suites, so no two rooms repeat and the whole building is effectively re-authored every year. A permanent, year-round section, cooled by solar power, now stands alongside the seasonal one.

Guests sleep on ice beds under reindeer hides and thermal sleeping bags, in rooms held a little below freezing, and warm buildings nearby hold the saunas, the restaurant and the ordinary business of staying somewhere.

Hôtel de Glace

Saint-Gabriel-de-Valcartier, Quebec, Canada

North America's ice hotel is rebuilt every winter near Quebec City, from snow and ice, with vaulted corridors, carved suites, an ice chapel and a bar where the glasses are cut from ice as well.

It runs a short season — roughly the depth of winter — and a large share of visitors come only to walk through it by day, which gives the place a public, almost civic character.

Those who stay are briefed carefully first, since sleeping at a few degrees below zero is a skill more than an endurance test.

Kirkenes Snowhotel

Kirkenes, Norway

Built anew each winter close to the Russian border in Norway's far north-east, the Snowhotel pairs carved snow rooms with a permanent site of timber cabins, huskies and reindeer.

The latitude is the attraction: this is well above the Arctic Circle, dark for much of midwinter, and the aurora is a reasonable expectation rather than a promise.

Ice sculptors work the corridors and rooms each season, and the dining room sits in a heated building a short walk across the snow.

Sorrisniva Igloo Hotel

Alta, Norway

On the bank of the Alta River, a snow hotel has been raised every winter since 2000, with sculpted suites, an ice bar and an ice chapel used for a steady number of weddings.

The company behind it also runs a year-round lodge nearby, so the seasonal building sits inside a working operation rather than standing alone.

Alta itself is a place people reach deliberately; the rock carvings outside the town are on the UNESCO list, and the winter sky is the other reason to make the trip.