Snowhotel Kirkenes
Kirkenes lies far into the Norwegian northeast, near the Russian border and well above the Arctic Circle. The Snowhotel there is rebuilt from snow and ice for each season, with carved rooms held at a steady temperature several degrees below freezing regardless of what the weather outside is doing.
Guests sleep in thermal bags on ice beds layered with reindeer hides; the bags and the briefing are part of the arrangement rather than an upsell. Ice sculpture runs through the corridors and the bar, and the work changes from one winter to the next because the structure does not survive the thaw.
Warm accommodation sits alongside it in the form of heated cabins, so a night in the ice is a choice rather than a condition of staying. The site also keeps a husky kennel and a reindeer herd, and its latitude puts it under the aurora on clear nights through the dark months.
- Rebuilt each winter
- Ice beds and thermal bags
- Heated cabins on site
- Arctic latitude