The ice hotel, Ice Bar

when it comes down to it, the ice hotel is a very simple structure.  you open the reindeer doors to a small reception area with an ice desk.  if you head strait you enter a a long foyer with four hallways on each side leading to the rooms (at the end of the foyer is a ice unicorn).
If you go left, you enter the Ice Bar.

Ice Bar:     that's cb in the middle.  hard to see giant fish in upper left

This year the ice bar had an underwater theme.  a good part of the bar was occupied by an enormous predator fish.  you can't stay in the ice hotel without having at least one toddy in the ice bar, so we all bellied up.

our whole group bellied.  tom, danya, cheryl, dane, cindy, kevin, corrinne

they never asked for corri's I.D. 

bar babes

ice booth.  lots of frozen cheeks in this bar

the one and only "ice glass"

our group developed an obsessive fascination with the ice glasses used in the bar.  in particular, how were they made??  oddly enough the ice bartender did not know how they were made, he just served the drinks.   so the debate went on and on.  everyone had their own idea.
drinks here in the ice bar were, shall we say, un-economical, so after the first round we picked up our misunderstood glasses and took the debate to our ice room, where the were filled with beer and wine.

later I asked at the reception desk, how the ice glasses were made, but they did not know either. the debate continued.  the next day, after returning from a lovely day of dog sledding,  we checked in at the warm hotel.  the warm hotel is the other half of the cold ice hotel. they can't seem to get people to spend more then one night in the cold hotel, so they built a warm hotel next door so people wold stay more than one night.  the gal at the reception desk also did not know how the glasses were made. BUT, she did know someone who would know. she was on the project.  Enter: Jens Ivarsson,  "director of design" at the ice hotel.  he is the person responsible for designing the hotel each year, and coordinating all the artists who create the Art Rooms.   At that moment, Jens was on his way to the ice glass production facility, next to the ice hotel, to give his wife's visiting girlfriend a tour of the the ice glass production facility.  timing is everything.  he walked over to the reception room and invited our whole group to join the tour.  swedes are just the nicest people.    not to be anti-climactic, but in a nutshell:  huge blocks of clear torne river ice are harvested  in january and stored in a warehouse.  enough ice is stored to last until the next january.   the blocks are cut into 4 inch slabs with a saw that resembles a tree cutters saw.   those  slabs are then cut lengthwise then crosswise, and you end up with a 4 x 2 x 2 rectangular ice cube.  then the ice cube is board out using a 1.5 inch diameter drill bit.  simple dimple, mystery solved.  danya had the winning entry by the way.

jens ivarsson outside his production facility.  his son on the left is riding Sweden's version of a scooter.

2000 pound blocks of ice.  the stacks on the right are ice glasses ready to ship around the world

a saw cuts the blocks into 4 inch slabs

another saw cuts length and width

the Ice hotel owns several ice bars located around the world.  i know there is one in stockholm and one in England.  they are currently opening one in shanghai, china. currently they manufacture and ship approximately one million ice glasses per year.

see ya