Ice Hotel 2

Yep, I took my footy to the Ice Hotel, and that's where it will stay. It ended up going over a fence, and I think, getting stuck on the foot-thick snow on a roof. So when it all melts, maybe it will eventually get swept into the river, which if it takes long enough might just hit it in time to become trapped when it freezes over again, entomed in a block of ice and used in a future ice hotel...

What a mark!

What a... nah, I won't say it

Ayako through the ice pillars
A ghoul

The ice, with some of the big cracks that can form in the single crystals

Enhanced contrast

This might give you siezures

A partial shot of the door to our room

Called Horse Trouble, it had walls of carved ice, and a speaker playing sounds of... probably the carving process. Dunno. Couldn't really work it out.


You get given a sleeping bag and liner, and are strongly recommended to just wear thermal underwear. The changeroom, toilet, and lockers (you don't really take luggage into the room) is in a warm building next to the hotel.Following the advice I was quite snug, and at one point had to open the bag a bit as I got hot. Ayako and Rieko didn't do so well though. Ayako wore external clothes, thinking she'd be warmer, but I guess it interfered with the ability of the sleeping bag to do it's job and absorb and retain her bodyheat, so she ended up really cold. Rieko had to leave the hotel at 5:30am, but couldn't sleep - possibly because she was planning on getting up every hour to check for more Northern Lights, and couldn't face leaving the warm lounge to go back to the cold room. So she left us at about 3:30 and waited in the locker room (there are beches and sofa chairs) for 2 hours for her taxi.

Eventually I got to sleep, and was woken at 8 by the staff with a cup of warm lingonberry juice. I must have been in a reasonably deep sleep as for a little while didn't quite know what time it was or what was going on ("Why are you waking us all up, it's just the other one who leaves early, not me...") but this was mumbled in a non-comprende mix of Swedish and English, and possibly Japanese.

Some sculpted ice details

We took an ice sculpting session, and chiseled through blocks of ice. After an overambitious start and a few slips of the chisel, I ended up trying to make a "thing". I call it "Unfinished: Opps & Angst". Couldn't even get the spelling of it right.



Ayako, after desperately trying to think of something non-taiko related to make, eventually chose to make ... a stack of 3 taiko. And quite well, too.


We also went on a two hour husky tour, ("a two hour tour..." sorry I'm chanelling the Gilligans Island theme). The dogs were amazing - bred in the Siberian tundra, they are most comfortable at about -25oC. They are bred to run, and can do ~200-250kms a day. They go absolutely nuts when you put the harness on and don't get moving. When we stopped for a break, the dogs took a short rest, rolled around in the snow, and then started howling to get going again.

The ride was great, but cold. Unfortunately it wasn't clear so we couldn't see any Northern Lights or stars as we ran, but it was great going across the snowy landscape, with nothing but the sounds of the dogs panting and the sled creaking as the musher in back transferred his wieght around to steer it.

But Mats the musher never said "mush". He was an interesting guy - a former army officer who used to spend months outside living between -30 and -50, and still participating in land mine clearing activities. He had just got back from +40 deg Africa a couple of days beforehand.




Fortunately for Rieko who was leaving that night, and the rest of us, we did get to see some Northern Lights, playing in the sky for about an hour. They weren't huge, but they were the traditional green curtains of light, and some streaky stuff as well. It was pretty amazing how quickly they moved and changed. Definitely worth looking out for - when you come to this part of the world, walk around at night, and look up every now and then.

Attempts to get a photo were not good. For some reason even with a tripod, this is blurry.