Places

What it takes to build an ice hotel

An inside look at how Quebec City’s Hôtel de Glace comes together as the iconic structure celebrates 25 years 

a building made of ice glows in blue and purple against a night sky
The Hôtel de Glace fluctuates in form and theme each year. This year, the theme is "Back to the Origins" and honours the four elements. (Photo: Ben Nguyen/Canadian Geographic)
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Each January, when the haze of a new year clears, a hotel appears from the snow and ice outside Quebec City. As Hôtel de Glace celebrates its 25th anniversary this season, more than two million bundled-up visitors will have passed through its iconic doorways into an ephemeral kingdom of ice. 

Winter after winter, the almost 4,300-square-metre architectural marvel, now located on the grounds of Village Vacances Valcartier, is built from the ground up to embody a new theme. On January 4, guests will enter an elemental realm of earth, air, fire and water. And because of this year’s special anniversary, they will also crunch through the snow-covered hallways of a larger hotel to the star of the 2025 season: an ice restaurant. With the culinary team from Quebec City’s Château Frontenac at the helm, the restaurant will serve three-course meals in an icy dining room and inspired by la belle province, complete with a “snowball” for dessert.

But it takes a lot of effort to look this good, as the team of about 50 workers who construct Hôtel de Glace each year know. Four months before opening day, art directors, architects and construction supervisors begin planning the structure. Then, once temperatures dip below zero for a full week — sometimes as early as November — sculptors, construction workers and electricians get busy laying the snow floor, securing and filling snow molds for walls and roofs, installing lights and beautifying this feat of engineering for the season ahead.

Then, when the sun breaks from the horizon and the snow begins to melt, usually by mid-March, Hôtel de Glace is shuttered and bulldozed to the ground. Like all good things, its end has come — until a new year beckons.

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This story is from the January/February 2025 Issue

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