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Every November, a building disappears into the Torne River. By December, it has been rebuilt from the same water, now frozen, on the riverbank at Jukkasjarvi, a village of 500 people 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle in Swedish Lapland.
What It Actually Is
The Icehotel is not a gimmick. It is a serious work of architecture and art, rebuilt to a different design every year by a team of artists and ice sculptors selected through an international competition.
Each suite is conceived and carved by a different artist, which means no two rooms are the same and no year’s hotel looks like the last.
The ice comes entirely from the Torne River, harvested in blocks of up to two tons each. The snow used for the walls is a compressed mixture of snow and ice called snice, which holds its structure better than either material alone and can be carved with the precision of stone.
The temperature inside stays between minus five and minus eight degrees Celsius year-round. Guests sleep on a block of ice covered in reindeer hides inside a sleeping bag rated to minus 35. Most people sleep better than they expect.
The Two Versions
There are actually two Icehotels running simultaneously. The seasonal hotel, built each winter and open from December through April, is the original, and its artist-designed suites are the reason most people make the journey. Each suite takes a team of artists around a week to carve and represents a distinct creative vision, from abstract geometric forms to detailed narrative sculptures that cover every surface of the room.
The permanent Icehotel 365, opened in 2016, runs year-round using solar-powered refrigeration to keep the ice frozen through the Arctic summer. It sits alongside the seasonal hotel and shares the same artistic approach, with suites that rotate annually.
For travelers who cannot make the winter window, it is the alternative. But the seasonal hotel, with the darkness outside and the northern lights overhead, is the one worth planning a trip around.
Where It Is and What Surrounds It
Jukkasjarvi is not a destination most people would find on their own, which is part of its appeal. The village sits on the frozen Torne River in a landscape of birch forest and open tundra, with reindeer moving through the treeline and the silence of genuine wilderness in every direction. The nearest town of any size is Kiruna, around 10 miles away, which is itself an unusual place: a mining city in the process of being physically relocated several miles to the east to prevent it from collapsing into the iron ore mine beneath it.
The surrounding landscape is the other reason to come. Dog sledding through the birch forest at dawn, with the temperature at minus 20 and the sky beginning to lighten, is an experience that belongs to this part of the world and nowhere else.
Snowmobile expeditions onto the frozen river and lake systems, ice fishing through holes cut in the Torne, and reindeer sledding with Sami guides whose families have worked this land for generations are all available as part of a Jukkasjarvi itinerary. And on clear nights, the northern lights move across a sky with no light pollution for hundreds of miles in any direction.
Getting Married at the Icehotel
The Icehotel has its own chapel, carved from ice each winter alongside the suites, and it is a fully licensed wedding venue. Ceremonies take place in a room where the walls, altar, and seating are cut from the same Torne River ice as everything else, with candles providing the only light and the temperature sitting at minus five degrees throughout. It is one of the most singular wedding settings anywhere in the world, and the photographs are unlike anything a conventional venue produces.
The chapel accommodates small ceremonies, and the surrounding landscape provides the rest. A dog sled procession to the chapel, a reception dinner in the warm dining room with Lapland ingredients on the table, and the northern lights overhead on a clear night make for a wedding that is difficult to replicate anywhere else on earth.
The Practicalities
The art suites in the seasonal hotel book out within days of opening to reservations, particularly for December and January. Most people combine one or two nights in the ice with nights in the Icehotel’s warm accommodation, comfortable Scandinavian-design cabins on the same property. The cold rooms are extraordinary but successive nights at minus seven degrees are not necessary to get what the place has to offer.
Do Not Disturb coordinates the flights from Stockholm to Kiruna, secures the rooms, and builds the surrounding Lapland experiences into a complete itinerary. The Icehotel is not difficult to reach once you know how, but it requires planning well ahead of when you want to go.
