COLD AS ICE

This winter, the Icehotel in Swedish Lapland celebrated its 30th anniversary. Rebecca Younger braved the elements for a chilly once-in-a-lifetime experience

Hearing a knock at the door, I blink my eyes open and look around the hotel room, unsure if I’m awake or still dreaming. The space before me has all the characteristics of a normal hotel room – a bed, a couple of armchairs in the corner and a pair of empty Champagne flutes on the shelf. Except there is something very different about this hotel room; everything is made of ice.

I had just survived a night in Sweden’s Icehotel, in temperatures of minus seven degrees Celsius, and the knocking sound was a member of staff coming to wake me with a warming cup of lingonberry juice.

The Icehotel, situated 200km north of the Arctic Circle in Swedish Lapland, is the original ice hotel and this season celebrates its 30th anniversary. The hotel was the brainchild of Yngve Bergqvist who, having seen the work of ice sculptors in Japan, opened an ice art gallery housed in a 2,500 square metre igloo in his hometown of Jukkasjärvi. When some visiting tourists were unable to find a room to stay in the village, it was suggested they could sleep in the ice gallery and Icehotel was born.

Construction of the seasonal hotel begins from November each year using thousands of tonnes of frozen water harvested from the Torne River the previous March and kept in a special temperature-controlled hanger over the summer months. No two designs are ever the same, ensuring visitors get a unique experience each time they visit.