Tracing The History Of The Ice Hotel
The history of the Ice Hotel can be traced back to 1989, the year when some Japanese ice sculpting artists paid a visit to the region and made a display of various works of art in ice. In spring the following year, Jannot Derid, a French artist, organized an exhibition within an igloo in the region. It so happened that one night there was no accommodation free in the town so some of the visitors to the exhibition spent the night within the igloo and slept in sleeping bags placed on reindeer skin; and thus the idea of the ice hotel was born.
Creating The Ice Hotel Annually
The Ice Hotel is built using ice chunks from the Torne River and snow. Every year in the spring season, generally from March, tons of ice are extracted from the frozen river and stored in a production hall that has housing space for 10,000 tons of ice and 30,000 tons of snow. The collected ice is used to build the Ice bar, glasses, product launches, ice sculpting lessons and events. The snow that is collected is used for providing a fortified structure to the hotel.
The construction process is started in November each year when the weather begins cold. Inverted steel structures are used as the foundation and snow is sprayed onto these and allowed to freeze, after which the steel forms are removed and the snow remains packed into place. Walls are built within the structure to create separate rooms and suites.
The Ice Hotel is unveiled phase by phase; every week a new section of the hotel is unveiled and this process continues till the early weeks of January by when the entire hotel is opened up to visitors.
The Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi is famous all around the world because it was the first of its kind and is also the largest, and possibly the most grand.
Visiting The Ice Hotel With The Baltic Travel Company
The Baltic Travel Company offers a special Sweden Ice Hotel Adventure package that one can sign up for to experience the wonder of the ice hotel. The package involves staying in the Swedish capital of Stockholm and then journeying to the north of the arctic region to visit the world famous ice hotel.