Quebec City, Canada - Many travellers to Scandinavia are familiar with ice hotels, edifices of frozen water that beckon guests with the prospect of an overnight stay in arctic-like cold. There is one such hotel in North America - in the predominantly French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec. This winter, it will be open from January 4 to March 29.
The only warm things at the Hotel de Glace are the candles on the bedside tables. The air is so cold you can see your breath, which adheres in tiny droplets to the opening of your sleeping bag. The tip of your nose feels numb - almost as though it were frozen. Getting up for a little while, drinking a glass of milk or going to the toilet seem impossible without risking death.
Despite the seemingly uninviting prospect of sleeping in a room at minus 15 degrees Celsius, every year about 4,000 people do just that at the Hotel de Glace, in the town of Sainte-Catherine-de-la-Jacques-Cartier, near the provincial capital Quebec City.
From the outside, it looks like an oversized igloo. Inside, variously coloured lamps make the walls, columns and statues glow - sometimes in green, then in red and yellow. With its hand-carved, ice chandeliers, the hotel resembles a fairy-tale castle for snow kings.
Inspired by the ice hotel in Jukkasjarvi, Sweden, the Hotel de Glace is redesigned and rebuilt in its entirety every year and consists of about 15,000 tons of snow and ice. Construction takes five weeks. Last winter, the hotel's 3,000 square metres of space included not only 36 rooms and themed suites but also a lobby, bar and lounge, sitting areas and a small ice chapel where couples can tie the knot.
The beds, in cave-like rooms and covered with mattresses and caribou pelts, have a solid ice base. The snow glows orange in the dim candlelight. The hotel's artists have created something different for each bedroom. One has a bar and fireplace fashioned from ice. The walls of the largest and most expensive suite are ornamented with snow carvings. There is also a private sauna area.
A night in the Hotel de Glace can cost as little as 160 US dollars per person. But it is possible to experience the hotel without sleeping in it, by taking one of the daily guided tours.
Since an adventurous spirit alone is not enough to withstand more than two hours at the icy inn, the staff briefs guests on what to wear and how to behave. Normal winter shoes offer too little protection from the cold. The guests learn how to warm up quickly in their arctic sleeping bags and how to prevent eyeglasses from freezing to the bedside table.
For less hardened types, there are outdoor hot tubs in the inner courtyard in addition to the sauna. You should make sure you have stopped sweating before you go to bed, though, because any moisture freezes immediately. Guests who are not careful can quickly get cold feet and a stuffy nose.
The next morning, there is no talk of having had a "nice night" or "deep sleep." Despite their briefing, a lot of guests suffer from chilly feet and some even retreat from their pelt-covered sleeping bags to camp beds in the main pavilion nearby.
Comfort, however, is not the object of the Hotel de Glace. Guests want to feel like polar explorers - for whom that first hot cup of post-expedition coffee is pure deliverance.
Internet: www.hoteldeglace.qc.ca
