Ice Hotels · Four hotels

Built to melt

An ice hotel is a seasonal structure: harvested river ice and packed snow, carved into rooms in December and returned to the water in spring. Every one of these four rebuilds itself from scratch each year, and every one keeps a heated building alongside, because a night at minus five is something guests choose rather than endure.

No. 01

Icehotel

Jukkasjärvi, Sweden

The original, and still the one every other ice hotel is measured against. Each autumn the Icehotel is rebuilt in Jukkasjärvi from snow and clear ice harvested from the Torne river, with artists selected by open submission to carve individual art suites; in spring the whole structure melts and goes back to the river it came from. Since 2016 a solar-cooled wing called Icehotel 365 has stayed frozen through the summer, which makes the place visitable outside the season. Warm rooms and a sauna sit alongside the cold ones, and nobody expects you to spend every night at minus five on a reindeer hide. Rebuilt each winter since 1989Torne river iceYear-round Icehotel 365 wing

No. 02

Hôtel de Glace

Saint-Gabriel-de-Valcartier, Quebec

North America's ice hotel is rebuilt every January in the Valcartier valley outside Quebec City, and its architecture leans harder on vaulted snow than on carved ice — long barrel-arched corridors, a chapel that hosts weddings, an ice slide through the central hall. The season is short, roughly January to late March, and the building is open to day visitors as well as overnight guests. It shares a site with a year-round resort and waterpark, so the hot tubs, the warm rooms and a normal breakfast are a short walk from the cold suites. Guests sleep in Arctic bags on ice beds under hides. Rebuilt annually since 2001Vaulted snow architectureAdjoining year-round resort

No. 03

SnowHotel Kirkenes

Kirkenes, Norway

Kirkenes sits at the far north-eastern corner of Norway, closer to Murmansk than to Oslo, and the SnowHotel there runs from December through April on the shore of a fjord off the Barents Sea. Each room is carved and lit individually, kept at a steady few degrees below freezing, and reached from a warm reception building where the sleeping bags and outer layers are issued. A husky yard on site accounts for a good share of the daytime programme, along with king crab fishing through the ice. The aurora is the reason many guests come this far; the latitude gives reasonable odds across the season. Open through the polar winterWorking husky yardBarents Sea location

No. 04

Sorrisniva Igloo Hotel

Alta, Norway

Sorrisniva has been building its igloo hotel on the bank of the Alta river since the late 1990s, and the family that runs it also runs the riverboats and the dog teams, which gives the operation a continuity the format does not always have. The structure goes up in December and comes down in April, with an ice chapel, an ice bar and suites carved anew each season to a fresh theme. A permanent lodge next door handles the warm end of a stay — dinner, showers, and somewhere to retreat if the night at minus four proves shorter than planned. Alta's rock carvings and the Finnmark plateau are close. On the Alta riverIce chapel and barCarved fresh each season