Alison's World & Adrianism: Chilling Out At The Ice Hotel in Summer, Kiruna, Sweden

Thursday 27 January 2011

Chilling Out At The Ice Hotel in Summer, Kiruna, Sweden

Ok, we were there in the height of summer, so we missed out on the frosty reception, but we still managed to have a warm welcome and a tour of the big freezer next door, where the huge blocks of ice harvested from the River Torne are stored for the coming winter.Whatever it was, Ghani was determined that we should visit the site, and we were not disappointed.

The Ice hotel is a temporary hotel made up of snow, sculpted blocks of ice, and some steel framing. They are promoted by their sponsors and have special features for travelers who are interested in novelties and unusual environments, and thus are in the class of destination hotels. Their lobbies are often filled with ice sculptures, and food and beverages are specially chosen for the circumstances.
All of the ice hotels are reconstructed every year, and are dependent upon constant sub-freezing temperatures during construction and operation. The walls, fixtures, and fittings are made entirely of ice, and are held together using a substance known as snice, which takes the place of mortar in a traditional brick-built hotel.

Existing each year between December and April, the Icehotel in the village of Jukkasjärvi, about 17 km from Kiruna, Sweden was the world's first ice hotel.

The entire hotel is made out of snow and ice blocks taken from the Torne River - even the glasses in the bar are made of ice. Each spring, around March, Icehotel harvests tons of ice from the frozen Torne River and stores it in a nearby production hall with room for over 10,000 tons of ice and 30,000 tons of snow. The ice is used for creating Icebar designs and ice glasses, for ice sculpting classes, events and product launches all over the world while the snow is used for building a strong structure for the building. About 1,000 tons of what is left is used in the construction of the next Icehotel.