The Ice Hotel

 “Beautiful. And frigid”. That’s the comment left by one guest at Canada’s Ice Hotel on the shores of Lac St.-Joseph, about 20 minutes west of Quebec City. And it gets its name, not surprisingly, from the fact that nearly everything in the hotel is made of frozen water. That includes the walls, ceilings, beds, furniture, chandeliers—even the glasses you drink from at the bar.

And this frozen wonder is a snow fort for kids of all ages. It takes almost six weeks to build and is rebuilt every year, each time slightly different from the year before. Over 12,000 tons of snow and 400 tons of ice are used. Once the weather warms up, around early April, it takes a mere six hours to demolish it. The original idea came from the Ice Hotel in Sweden and some guests have experienced both of them.

Visit the N’Ice Club for a drink (hot chocolate is available) but be careful where you put your glass down, it tends to slip off the bar. And the beat of the disco is bound to get you up rocking to the music. People dance happily in groups or on their own. So there’s no need to worry about rejection or “getting the cold shoulder” here.

You can take a tour of the hotel or you can join the adventurous and spend a frozen night here in temperatures that hover between 23 and 28 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 2 to minus 5 Celsius). Staying over is by far the interesting part.

You take an information class that shows you how to get into your mummy bag—it’s warm enough for temperatures that go down to minus 40 degrees (your fridge, by the way is only minus 8 degrees). Honeymooners get to zip their bags together and yes, there’s even a wedding chapel on the premises. Makes you want to ask: “Did you get cold feet?” but that would be too corny. Romantic rooms include the ice bed shaped like a sleigh and the Nephertite room.

The best practice is actually to go in the outside hot tub to increase your core temperature (you’ll need to wear your winter hat but don’t worry, everyone does, hats and hot tubs go surprisingly well together). Then you dry off in the dry sauna and put your spa robe (provided), boots and hat on. Your clothes for the next day go at the bottom of your sleeping back so they stay warm and don’t end up cold the next morning.

The secret to a good night’s sleep is actually to make sure you don’t breathe inside your sleeping bag as that would cause humidity and you’d eventually get cold. Even wearing that day’s socks to bed can do the same thing, so be sure to put on fresh socks right before you climb in.

Read the entire Jetsetters Magazine feature about the Ice Hotel at this link.