Hôtel de Glace

The first guests arrive in early January, when the temperature in the valley north of Quebec City sits well below freezing and the building has just been finished. By the end of March the Hôtel de Glace, in Saint-Gabriel-de-Valcartier, will be closed, and by May it will be gone, melted back into the field it stood on. It has been built this way every winter since 2001, the only ice hotel in North America.

History

The idea came from Sweden. The Icehotel at Jukkasjärvi, first raised in 1989, showed that a building of ice and snow could take paying guests, and a Quebec team led by Jacques Desbois set out to do the same in Canada. The first Hôtel de Glace opened in January 2001 at Station touristique Duchesnay, on Lac Saint-Joseph in Sainte-Catherine-de-la-Jacques-Cartier. It later moved closer to Quebec City, to a site in the Charlesbourg district, and since the 2017 season it has stood at Village Vacances Valcartier, a year-round resort with a water park and the conventional Hôtel Valcartier alongside.

Each edition has a theme chosen by the design team, and no two years look alike. What stays the same is the method: a steel-and-wood formwork is covered with snow blown by machine, left to harden, then the forms are withdrawn, leaving vaulted corridors of compacted snow into which blocks of clear ice are set for walls, columns, furniture and sculpture.

Architecture and design

Construction starts in early December and takes about six weeks. In a typical year the hotel uses roughly 500 tonnes of ice and 30,000 tonnes of snow. Ceilings in the main halls rise several metres; the great hall carries an ice chandelier, and the walls are carved in relief by sculptors who return each season. Inside, the temperature holds between minus 3 and minus 5 degrees Celsius whatever the weather outside, since the snow walls insulate as well as they chill.

Rooms and suites

Rooms and themed suites are carved rather than furnished. The bed is a block of ice topped with a wooden base, a mattress and an Arctic sleeping bag; guests change in a heated building and sleep in the ice room, with hot showers, lockers and bathrooms in the warm block. Some suites have a fireplace, decorative only, and private access to a hot tub or sauna outside. The number of rooms varies from one edition to the next, typically a few dozen, and a stay includes a bedroom at the neighbouring Hôtel Valcartier for those who prefer to retreat in the small hours.

Dining

There is no restaurant inside the ice. Dinner and breakfast are taken in the warm buildings of the resort. The Ice Bar serves cocktails in glasses made of ice, and it is open to day visitors as well as guests, which makes the evening crowd larger than the bedroom count suggests.

Wellness

Outdoor hot tubs and a sauna stand beside the hotel, and the custom is to warm up in them before bed, dry thoroughly, then walk to the ice room. The resort's indoor water park, Bora Parc, and the Nordic spas of the Jacques-Cartier area are the daytime alternatives.

Weddings and events

The hotel has a chapel of ice with pews and an altar, and weddings are celebrated there every season, usually for small parties who then move to the warm halls for the reception. Corporate groups book the Ice Bar and the great hall for evening events, and guided tours can be arranged for larger parties during the day. Capacities change with each year's plan.

Location

Saint-Gabriel-de-Valcartier is about 30 kilometres north of Quebec City, a drive of 30 to 40 minutes by car; the resort has free parking. Jean Lesage International Airport is roughly 30 minutes away by road. Quebec City's Gare du Palais handles VIA Rail trains from Montreal. The hotel takes overnight guests from early January to late March, and day visits run through the same season.