An Icy Reception for Hotel Guests

Canadian entrepreneurs last week announced plans to open what they called North America’s first “ice hotel” and said 1,000 people have signed up to spend a night in a chilly building made of ice and snow. The 10,760-square-foot hotel, built of 4,500 tons of snow and 250 tons of ice, is to open in January outside Quebec City and function for three months before it melts next spring. Facilities will include a bar, a cinema, art galleries and executive suites with ice beds. Rates are about $109 per night. The concept is imported from Sweden, where what its owners say was the world’s first ice hotel was built in Jukkasjarvi, about seven hours’ drive from Stockholm.