Icy pleasures – in Sweden’s Icehotel

Every year – this year for the 25th time – a special hotel opens in the tiny village of Jukkasjärvi, located in the far north of Sweden. This hotel has attained cult status. The icy pleasure lasts only three to four months, but artists, architects and designers work year-round to make it happen. They are invited annually to create a hotel made of snow and ice. Actually the Icehotel is more of an inhabitable art installation. Every room is a unique design creation. Every season, about 50,000 visitors come to Europe’s last wilderness, located around 200 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle. The rest of the time, only 1,100 people (and 1,000 dogs) live in Jukkasjärvi. Construction work lasts from March to December for the 5,500 m² hotel made of thousands of tonnes of ice and ‘snice’, a mixture of snow and ice used to reinforce the structure. The fun comes to an end by the middle of April as the artistic hotel slowly melts away. No guest of the Icehotel has ever frozen; along with survival courses, there are plenty of warm, cuddly reindeer pelts to help everyone get a good night’s sleep.