If Looks Could Chill

You want to stay in a cool hotel? Well, there's nothing cooler than a hotel literally made of ice! We wrap up warm and check in to the famous Ice Hotel in Jukkasjarvi, Sweden

Celebrating its 20th anniversary out in the Swedish wilderness, the Icehotel has carved itself quite a niche, says Ramsay Short, who wraps up warm for a visit. Photography by Lars Thulin

It’s not a pretty sight. I am naked but for my boxer shorts and a pair of snow boots, running through ice- sculpted corridors searching for the way to the bathroom, my bum turning as blue as a cop car’s siren. It must be about 3am, and I can feel my teeth begin to chatter until finally I’m through a door and into an almost sauna-like-in-comparison heated building. Phew!

Having relieved myself and downed a quick cup of steaming hot lingonberry juice – the on- tap drink of choice in northern Sweden – I take a deep breath and dash through the door back into the Narnia-like Icehotel’s innards, searching like a maniac for the “Abanico” room where my other half is holed up.

Finally, I find it – ours has an incredible ice fan (“abanico” means fan in Spanish) set into the wall above the bed by father and son artists Rob and Timsam Harding – and quick as a fish out of water I jump back into the huge double sleeping bag and wonder if this is an experience really worth having. Luckily, the sleeping bag is good for staying warm in temperatures as low as -15˚C (the temperature inside the place always remains a much more toasty -5˚C), so I soon heat up.

I’ve come on a three-day trip to the town of Jukkasjarvi, 200km north of the Arctic Circle in Swedish Lapland, to the first and most famous ice hotel in the world. It’s a place where you can sleep on reindeer skins in what is a massive igloo, and enjoy the region’s more traditional draws of the northern lights, husky sledding, snow-mobiling and Sami culture. Everything about the experience is thrilling.

The idea for the Icehotel came about back in 1989, after CEO Yngve Bergqvist had built an igloo on the frozen banks of the river Torne to promote Sami art and culture. When a couple of tourists asked to sleep in the igloo, Bergqvist realised it could be so much more, and just a couple of years later the 6,000m2 Icehotel was born – today attracting almost 50,000 visitors annually.

The structure itself is breathtaking – a wonder. The ice is so perfectly crystal-clear, free from cracks and bubbles, with an incredible azure tint – thanks to the lack of pollutants in the pristine Torne river from which it comes. I take my hand from my gloves to touch it, feel the cool glaze against my skin – it’s sexy as hell, and I understand how couples staying here get all romantic once in their frozen cocoon. That is if their extremities don’t freeze!

Inside, the hotel is labyrinthine, with a vast hallway at the centre and different corridors snaking off towards individual rooms, about 40 of which are created by specially selected artists and designers. Hailing from around the world, they arrive each year in mid-November to conceive and then sculpt their concepts into being.

Touring the rooms during daylight hours, I find an ice Buddha room, a waterfall room, a room with a gigantic, freaky ice doll staring down at you as you sleep, a room with slides – the list goes on. It’s mind-boggling to wonder how the designers carve it all, and this is a serious and studied art that takes years to master. I spend a morning in an ice-sculpting class myself, using different chisels to scrape away at a much smaller block of ice. It’s a meditative, mesmerising pleasure. I could have spent days with the ice, and my rather abstract creation of crenellations leaves me quite proud.

Then there’s the magnificent Icebar, serving up various vodkas (including Sweden’s very own Absolut) and rainbow-coloured cocktails in perfectly crafted ice glasses; amid towering ice carvings, music pumping. It’s a surreal and dreamlike experience to have a drink here, and putting your lips to the ice glass you can see the impression they leave. Honestly, vodka never tasted so good.

Built from scratch every December when the weather is consistently cold enough, the hotel is made entirely of ice and snow – from the walls to glasses and dishes. You’ll even find an ice church and an ice-sculpture art gallery. The initial hotel structure is created around huge steel forms that are sprayed with snow guns then allowed to freeze. The steel is removed, leaving behind a maze of free- standing corridors into which huge two-tonne blocks of ice are dragged. Rooms are then measured out and the sculptures created.

The blocks of ice are cut from the frozen Torne in March and April, just as the previous year’s building begins to melt, and transported to warehouses where they are stored in -5˚C to be ready for construction come November. It’s a complex yet deeply satisfying process that, despite the 1,000 tonnes of ice from the Torne (together with over 30,000 tonnes of “snis”, a mixture of snow and ice), is extremely eco- conscious. It sounds huge, but that amount of ice represents just a tiny fraction of the water from the fast-flowing Torne – watch the river for just a single minute from Jukkasjarvi’s shore and it will rush past you. When spring arrives, the majority of the ice melts and returns to the cycle of nature.

The hotel also uses 100% renewable electricity, and aims to be carbon-neutral (and even “carbon-negative”) by 2015 – and that includes the powering of its warm accommodation too. Generally, the custom is to spend one night actually sleeping in the cold accommodation and another one or two in the warm log cabin lodgings that occupy the rest of the site, which is what we do.

I am eager to try all the place has to offer – one morning we hang out with a young Sami man to learn all about the culture of the indigenous people of northern Sweden, Finland and Norway. Historically, the Sami are nomadic reindeer herders, with the animal providing wealth, transport, food and weather- proofing. They own all the reindeer around here, and even wild ones are tagged. At a mock Sami village, we race reindeer on sleds round a track. It’s hysterical, because the animals have a mind of their own and refuse to listen to my whooping barks of encouragement to go faster, until I end up sprawled on the floor having let go of the reins. We also try our hand at lassooing the creatures round the antlers, and this time I succeed in capturing one – very tame though it is! Finally, we stretch our feet out in a traditional Sami teepee and eat reindeer meat in bread with lingonberry sauce, cooked over an open fire. It’s fun and enlightening, but I still find something forced and theme park-ish about this Sami culture tour and I can’t help feeling that our guide would rather be somewhere else.

It gets better though, as next thing I know I’m on a long wooden sled with five others all bunched up together, being pulled by 10 dogs barking, panting and running as fast as any car through the undulating, white wilderness surrounding Jukkasjarvi. The huskies are gorgeous animals, born to run, and the way they know the landscape, moving with such sure-footed enthusiasm is astonishing. After about 45 minutes we stop for hot coffee and cake at a way station in a frozen clearing, and I’m able to embrace the quiet beauty of the place while the dogs catch their breath.

The highlight of my stay – as much as my nights drinking Absolut in the Icebar and getting cosy in our two-person sleeping bag – has to be the night-time snowmobiling trip through the hills to see the northern lights. As the sun sets over the Torne, we head off in a line of snowmobiles into the rifts and valleys beyond, competing with each other to go faster. It’s my first time on this beast of a machine and, while my goggles protect my eyes, my cheeks are whipped to burning in the cold. We stop at points of interest, from high peaks of hills we’ve just climbed to quiet iced lakes; admiring floating crystals of snow, thrown up by the wind, in the dying light. Then at a vast white clearing far from city lights and human buzz, we dismount and look up at the flashes of swirling colour in the sky above. It’s a perfect view of the aurora borealis, a phenomenon that occurs about 200 times a year up here above the Arctic Circle, with glittering stars the perfect canvas.

A stay at the Icehotel is a trip of a lifetime, there is no doubt. For couples it’s romantic bliss, for adventure seekers it offers plenty of incredible activities, and for kids it’s a trip none could forget. Just make sure not to drink too much vodka before you bed down in your ice suite. It’s a long mission to the warm toilets in the quiet of the night, and I can tell you from experience, a blue bum ain’t no fun!

FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT WWW.ICEHOTEL.COM

To the Icebar!

Can’t take a trip to Jukkasjarvi? Check out these two Icehotel ice bars in London and Oslo. Everything in them – from the walls to the glasses to the actual bar itself – is made from Torne ice. Sessions last about 40 minutes, and a hooded thermal cape is provided.

ICEBAR LONDON BY ICEHOTEL

The award-winning London Icebar’s theme this winter is ‘Purity with a Twist’, the design inspired by the twisting meanders of the Torne River. Down warming shots of different vodkas and cocktails in -5˚C, and when you’re done with frozen antics, step into the Belowzero restaurant and bar to eat, drink and party away the rest of the night.

31–33 HEDDON STREET, TEL: +44 (0)20 7478 8910, WWW.ICEBARLONDON.COM

ICEBAR OSLO BY ICEHOTEL

Try the hot lounge as well as the cold one here, and why not take some ice-sculpting lessons?

12 KRISTIAN IV’S GATE, TEL: +47 2242 6661, WWW.ICEBAROSLO.COM

Fast facts

GETTING THERE:

Ryanair operates flights to Vasteras and Skavsta airports from 28 destinations. To drive to Jukkasjarvi, Ryanair’s exclusive car rental partner Hertz (www.hertz.com) provides special rates for Ryanair passengers. For trains to Kiruna, next to Jukkasjarvi, from Skavsta airport and from Vasteras town, visit www.sj.se.

STAYING THERE:

The winter season runs from 10 December to 24 April. For most of the season (rooms are cheaper in April), one night in an art suite costs from 2,150SEK (€232) per person; and for a double ice room, from 1,850SEK (€200) per person. Snow rooms cost from 1,600SEK (€173) per person. A double room in the warm accommodation costs from 1,250SEK (€135) per person.

ACTIVITIES:

The Northern Lights snowmobile night tour costs 1,750SEK (€189) per person, with two to a snowmobile. The half-day dog sledding tour costs 1,390SEK (€150) per person. A Sami culture morning with reindeer racing and lassoing costs 1,495SEK (€161) per person. Places fill up quickly, so it’s best to book about three weeks in advance.