Sweden Opens Year-Round Ice Hotel

Each winter, as northern Sweden descends into snowy darkness, one of the country’s top tourist attractions makes its annual appearance.

A photo posted by ICEHOTEL Sweden (@icehotelsweden) on Jan 3, 2017 at 2:24pm PST

The ICEHOTEL is normally deconstructed and reconstructed year after year; it’s been done since 1989, when the structure opened as the world’s first hotel made of snow and ice. Each spring, some 5,000 tons of ice are harvested from the nearby River Torne and stored in cold storage over the summer for use the next winter.

After 27 years of being a temporary structure, the ICEHOTEL will be open 365 days a year. This move will mark another first for the hotel: Now, it will be the world’s first ice hotel to stay open all year.

A photo posted by ICEHOTEL Sweden (@icehotelsweden) on Nov 28, 2015 at 3:01pm PST

Even 200 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle, summers in Jukkasjärvi, where the hotel is built, are warm enough to melt ice. The hotel will use new solar-powered cooling technology to preserve part of the hotel, including its bar, art gallery and 10 luxury suites, to hotel guests coming in search of the midnight sun each summer.

The entire hotel will not be preserved; some sections will be allowed to melt as usual, so there will still be fresh art and architecture for guests to awe at each year.