Quebec's Ice Hotel

Making snow forts was one of my favorite wintertime activities as a kid. I used to imagine living in a snow palace, complete with ballrooms and bedrooms. A child's fantasy? I thought so, until I visited the ultimate, luxury snow fort: the Ice Hotel Quebec-Canada. It is a real hotel made entirely out of snow and ice, the only one of its kind in North America. It is situated on the grounds of the Duchesnay winter resort, 30 minutes east of French-speaking Quebec City. The "Hotel de Glace" appears each year from January until early April, when the springtime sun slowly melts it away.

The idea for the Ice Hotel Quebec-Canada came from the other side of the globe. In 1996, the hotel's founding president, Jacques Dubois, read an article about the Swedish ice hotel that was first built ten years before. It is in a little village called Jukkasjarvi, seven hours from Stockholm. Monsieur Dubois made three trips to Sweden to negotiate the North American rights to build such a hotel in Canada.

The first North American Ice Hotel opened in January 2001, after five weeks of construction. It featured a Grand Hall, Ice Bar, art galleries, and six guest suites. As I entered this novel attraction just weeks after its Canadian debut, I felt like a little girl stepping into a shimmering glass castle. There is simply a natural, quiet beauty to snow and ice that surpasses the man-made beauty of even the ritziest hotel. The architecture has varied from year to year as the hotel has grown in size and popularity. The 2007 version boasted a chapel (popular for weddings), the N'Ice Club, hot tubs, and thirty-six themed guest suites. At a stunning 30,000 square feet, the hotel now requires 500 tons of ice and 15,000 tons of snow. This modern-day igloo has walls four feet thick that warm the inside air to temperatures of 23-28 degrees Fahrenheit.

Visitors can stroll among ice sculptures and admire an ice chandelier glimmering in a colorful light show of fiber optics. Everything is made of snow and ice: chairs, tables, lamps, and even a newspaper stand holding real copies of "Le Soleil." Your drinks from the bar are served inside handheld blocks of ice, and movies in the theatre are projected onto a snow-white wall. There's a fireplace, too, but don't expect to warm yourself by any fire in this hotel!

Of course, the main attractions are the guest suites. Each candlelit room is unique. The bed frames are blocks of ice, hollow in the center. A solid wood box frame holds a foam mattress, fleece sheets, and a blanket or deer pelt. At night, guests huddle inside sleeping bags for extra warmth.

A one-night stay in this unique hotel starts at almost $300 per person. It is also open to the public during the day and evening for a small fee.

If you're looking for a cool place to spend your winter holidays, check in at the Ice Hotel.