Hotel Kiruna

CARE TO HAVE YOUR WHISKEY IN THE ROCKS?

“Damn bladder!” The thought runs through my brain as I tear myself out of the artic sleeping bag and into the frigid -5^o Celsius hotel room. Tying the laces of my artic boots, I know the worse is yet to come. The toilets are outside where the thermometer shows something below -20. Even the beautiful aurora above doesn’t make things less miserable, nor the knowledge I paid $500 for this pleasure.

I feel the blood vessels in my temples throbbing and a headache creeping up to a crescendo of misery. When asked the following morning how the experience was, I would say it was fun. But I’m a terrible liar. This was supposed to be the height of our Nordic winter experience. In a way, it is – a strange yet unforgettable night. But so was the night I was caught by the police driving my father’s car when I was 15. Some cool things are only cool on paper, and a nice warm bed in a well-heated room is all I really want right now. I plow my way back from the outhouse to the hotel and crawl back into the now-cold sleeping bag. I shiver and try my best to get back to sleep.

67.8558° N, 20.2253° E

They say Stockholm, Sweden is a dark, cold, depressing city to be in during winter. Imagine what 1,250Km north of it feels like, and you’ll get Kiruna.

Kiruna is a place 23,00 Swedes call home. Lying 150 Km north of the Artic circle, it gets about an hour a day of something remotely resembling sunshine during early January. Closing your eyes, you can easily imagine it as a Siberian Gulag complete with inmates, desolation, and misery. Still, Sweden is a liberal democracy, and there are no guards with AK47s keeping the chain gang moving. The reason people call Kiruna home is a big and quite ugly iron ore mine – the largest in the world, towering above the modest, drab-looking housing.

A city with an Iron hart

This mine has made Kiruna what it is and helped build the British Industrial might as well as the 3^rd Reich’s war machine (that last bit of embarrassing background is harder to find in the local mining museum). How big is the Kiruna mine? Big enough to swallow the whole town. That’s why the city is being relocated into a new spot. Believe it or not, the current location is in danger of collapsing entirely into the mine beneath.

Lapps, Samis, and the age of political correctness.

Ore mine apart, the town has recently found a new diversion, reinventing itself as a Laplandic winter destination for wealthy tourists seeking the full-on Sami experience. That’s why we’re here, although we didn’t sign up for Sami-anything to the best of my memory. As we land in the (frozen) airport and grab our bags, we find out that the locals, more commonly known around the world as Lapps or Laplandic, considered it derogatory. They prefer to be called Sami. Not wanting to make any fresh new enemies, we quickly adopt a typically un-Israeli political correctness and refrain from using the “L” word ever again.

Looking around us, we could have mistaken Kiruna’s touristic charms with those of San Tropez, but that would mean ignoring the complete lack of ocean, sun, palm trees, Ferraris, oligarch mansions, and Michelin-star restaurants. At least the temperatures are similar. Too bad there’s a minus sign attached to them.

Frozen

No. We didn’t fly all the way here for some French-Riviera-Esque thrills. We’re here for the Icehotel on the banks of the Torne river. “River,” of course, is in the eye of the beholder as the whole thing is now as solid as a glacier and produces ice cubes as big and pure as the ones in your home freezer – if your home freezer was the size of a 787 Dreamliner. Every year in October, the clear waters of the Torne River slow down and freeze into ice which passionate local artists gather to build an entirely new – from the ground up – rendition of an arctic Hotel. One can easily mistake it to a palace taken directly from Disney’s latest “Frozen” franchise.

Only it isn’t. The Kiruna Icehotel was first built in 1989, almost a quarter of a century before the first Frozen movie hit theaters. It should not come as a big surprise if it was to be found out that the creators of Frozen froze like me in one of Icehotel’s chambers before sitting down to draw Elsa. In any case, each year, when spring comes, the hotel – beautiful as it is – simply melts away, and its waters find their way back to nature. Each coming winter brings a one-of-a-kind all-new version of the Icehotel, complete with new rooms, lobby, bar (we’ll get to that later), everything.

Icehotel, Inc

Three decades and many reincarnations later, the Swedish Icehotel has become world-famous, with plenty of imitators in several countries across the Artic neverlands.

The fact this hotel recycles itself every season has lately given it an additional environmental twist. Still, for those lazy bums who just can’t make Kiruna in time, a full-on emission-intensive version exists in the shape of a massive freezer that answers to the name of Icehotel 365. Unlike the original, this newest addition is permanent. Inside the Gigantic 2,100 square meter icebox, it’s winter all year round. Fancy a truly northern experience in mid-June? No worries! The first permanent ice and snow hotel to be built will provide you with that exquisite Arctic adventure all year round. Just don’t expect to see any auroras; Kiruna’s summers are notoriously bright. It never gets dark from May to August.

Anyway, it’s January now. The little sun barely hangs above the horizon for a few minutes between 12:00 and 13:00. It’s pitch black by 3pm. We skip the electric version and go for the original. The Emodi team includes three kids, a wife, a brother, a sister-in-law, and their two daughters. The brochure says Icehotel is a “true treat to the senses.” Being built anew every year and complete with a series of Art Suites, each one uniquely designed by commissioned artists from all over the world. “By its nature, each suite is a one-off creation and has never previously been built.”

Inside

As a marketing person, I usually take the words of another marketeer with a grain of salt. Not this time. The elaborate description on the website fails to deliver the full impact.

Entering through the thick wooden doors comes a deliverance into a world of magic. An unearthly turquoise-blue main hall greats us as we enter the main structure. Although the sun set down an hour ago (it’s 2pm), the dim light outside penetrates through the icy ceiling and reflects from the row of massive ice columns in a sapphire-like glow. No bigger than a large igloo, the rooms are indeed a work of art. Each contains elaborate ice sculptures covering themes as diverse as Space Station, Dungeon, Inside a Brain, Jungle, Mushroom Garden, and wherever the laborious minds of the ice artists took them.

Every room (euphemistically called “suite”) includes a large square ice podium that acts as a bed, complete with a thin set of mattresses and Reindeer hide cover for much-needed insulation from the hunk of frozen ice beneath. Being confronted with the basic amenities convinces several team members to bail out and switch an unforgettable night in an ice cave with a boring bed and breakfast in a nearby hotel. My middle son, Ariel, and I decided to brave it out and choose a room with a Chrystal theme (the space station was taken) and spend the remaining time at the bar.

No Vin Chaud

It’s 17:00 when we open the doors of the big freezer and enter Icehotel’s other great attraction. The frozen bar greats us with ice chairs, ice tables, an ice counter complete with ice stools, and a carved wall (made of ice, what else) featuring the entire alcohol inventory any self-respecting establishment isn’t complete without. 5pm could be a bit early for most, but here it’s already four hours past sunset, it’s dark outside, cold inside, and we’re on vacation, so the hell with it!

I order a nice Single Malt, and junior asks for Apple juice. We take our seats next to one of the lower glass-like tables scattered around the main hall. A few short minutes later, our order is served in thick glasses. Another look reveals our drinking mugs are not made of glass. They are chunks of ice molded into mug-like shapes. I can’t help chuckling at the genius ridiculousness of it. Having a bar made of ice is a novelty; having your Whiskey in the rocks is pure comedy. It’s good to know the folks at Icehotel also have a good sense of humor!

Heading into the cold

I ask Ariel to finish his apple juice before it freezes solid inside his “glass” and try my luck ordering warm Sangria. The barman smiles wearingly. I guess he heard this one before. We finish our drinks and head for dinner. The menu promises a gourmet experience but fails to deliver. One can only accept the fact that great chefs don’t travel 1,250km north of Stockholm in dead winter. The team splits after dinner, with half going for an ordinary good night’s sleep while my son, my sister-in-law, her two daughters, and I head to the preparation hall.

We get a quick brief about the “do’s and don’ts” (can’t remember any of them), receive an Artic-ready sleeping bag, and head to our suites. I’m pleasantly surprised that the sleeping bag and deer skin bed cover do their job well and insulate us perfectly from the massive ice cube below. The inside is warm and almost comfortable. Still, sleep wouldn’t come. I guess one must be born an Inuit to truly embrace this frigid experience.

The following morning

Every one of us had these mornings before. You can’t get any sleep, are tired and aching, and wish to be left alone. Alas, our time has come to clear the room. I’m peeved to be thrown out of my expensive bed, but at the same time, relieved the punishment is finally over. We each receive a diploma for surviving the endeavor to see the light of day (Figuratively, it’s just 9am and still dark).

If you happen to be in Kiruna, visit the Icehotel, but please – I beg you – go to sleep in an ordinary, boring hotel.