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Ice Hotel in Quebec, Canada

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The “Hotel de Glace” was built in 2000 and is the only ice hotel in North America. It first opened its doors in 2001 and has been immensely successful from its very first season until present-day. By 2009, more than half a million of people had visited the hotel even for just one night in order to experience this unique opportunity. The hotel consists of 36 rooms. With its very own ice chapel, many couples have come to this hotel to get married. The interior temperature remains between -3 and -5 degrees Celsius.

How it was built

Photography by Ahmad Tawakol. Lounge in hotel

The Ice Hotel was constructed using 500 tons of ice and 15,000 tons of snow to craft the Ice Hotel with its ceilings as high as 18 feet. The walls are up to four feet thick and are covered with original artwork and furniture carved from ice blocks. The hotel has a four-month lifespan each year before being brought down in April. Therefore, the hotel usually opens from the first week of January until the last week of March. It only took about a month and a half to build this hotel

with only 60 workers. The Hotel makes its own snow using a special mixture to adjust the humidity. It is built with metal frames in order to allow the snow to harden for a few days  and then the cranes are removed. Each new season, the design of the hotel is altered with the placement of huge new ice statues and an evident change in the hotel’s design. For example, in the 2003 season, the theme of the hotel was fusion. However, in the 2008 season, the style was transformed to an antique-ish style as shown in the image on the left. Therefore, the architecture of the hotel changes regularly.

Life in the Hotel

Photograph taken by Ahmad Tawakol. One of the Guest Bedroo

The furniture of the hotel is all made out of ice. To be able to sit or lie down on these pieces of furniture, deer skin fur are always available in the rooms.

Photography by Ahmad Tawakol. Left section of reception area

All beds have a solid ice base and a wooden bed spring with a mattress on top. The sleeping bags guarantee warmth since they they are covered in deer furs from the inside of the sleeping bag.  Only the bathrooms are heated and located in a separate insulated structure.

Sources Cited:

Canada Online Casinos 2026 – Safe Canada Casinos

http://www.thetravelmagazine.net/i-3708–h-tel-de-glace-quebec-canada.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Hotel_%28Quebec%29

http://www.ahmadtawakol.com

http://ahmadtawakol.com/

Comments

3 responses to “Ice Hotel in Quebec, Canada”

  1. Eriks Avatar
    Eriks

    So is there a limit to how many people can be in the hotel at once? Since I figure that 25 people in hotel room would make the ice begin to melt, since the below-one-degree couldn’t be sustained. Just wondering though.

  2. WonGu Avatar
    WonGu

    Interesting post… I was wondering is the hotel is built at the same place every year. Do the walls require other support such as rebar to keep the hotel in shape or is it solely build on ice? Finally are the maintenance costs high? Considering the fact that everything is made up of snow or ice, I thought that things may break easily. Overall, I think that the concept of the hotel is very interesting.

  3. ahmadtawakol Avatar
    ahmadtawakol

    The hotel is built solely from ice, on ice. It is rebuilt every year in the same place. I don’t know about the maintenance cost, but I don’t think its very much, after all, ice is free (at least here in Canada). The walls and the whole structure are actually very rigid, ice becomes almost like concrete when it’s compacted, so it doesn’t break easily at all.

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