The week we started carving the main hall of Sweden’s Icehotel, our breezy workspace had temperatures averaging -25 C. As Canadians who embrace winter, there was no complaining.
My husband, Brian McArthur, and I started by drawing initial shapes of towering aspens and poplar trees on the vast snowy walls. We were inspired by the forests where we work and play as artists around central Alberta as well as the elm and maple tree canopies in cities that create an urban oasis. The goal was to freeze these visual thoughts into a majestic, 100-foot-long hall made of snow and ice.
In the past 20-plus years, we have sculpted snow across Canada, at Ottawa’s Winterlude festival, Winnipeg’s Festival du Voyageur, the Snowking Winter Festival in Yellowknife, Silver Skate Festival in Edmonton and SnowDays Festival in Banff. But this would be the largest space we had ever carved in snow.
Using the tools of their trade – chisels, sanders, shovels and chainsaws, alongside other carving implements – the artists transform snow and ice into spectacular works of art.
Leah Hennel/The Globe and Mail
It’s our third time sculpting at this ephemeral hotel made of snow and ice. In 2019, we carved a hotel room to look like a jungle, with a larger-than-life cougar laying at the bottom of the bed. In 2023, we created another room to feel like the inside of a beaver lodge, with two enormous beavers on the walls and a soundtrack of gurgling streams and chewing noises. Each took us two weeks to carve but this time it would be over three weeks.
We left our studio in Red Deer County, Alta., in mid-November, arriving in Lapland, the northernmost part of Sweden. We were driven about 20 minutes east from the airport in Kiruna to Jukkasjärvi, a village of less than 800 people beside the Torne River. This is where Sweden’s Icehotel has been built and rebuilt every winter since 1989. We were in time to admire the polar twilight; by 3 p.m. it’s dark and by 4 p.m., if you’re lucky, northern lights will start to dance.
In January, 2025, we’d received an invitation to submit ideas for more prestigious areas of Icehotel’s 36th iteration. Our design was chosen for the main hall and we were a tiny bit intimidated by the sheer scale. Our concept, which we titled “Cathedral Grove,” would use trees to create a sanctuary and a sense of enchantment for guests arriving at this destination hotel.
Upon arrival, we were introduced to the support team and provided with a box which includes a chainsaw, Kevlar safety pants, chisels, measuring tools, buckets, sanders and, specially made for us, an eight-foot-long drawing pole with marker attached so we could draw above our heads. The crew removed snow as we chiselled it away and reminded us to take the Swedish “fika” breaks twice a day to warm up with cookies and coffee, tea or hot lingonberry juice. We brought lots of Quebec maple candies to share, too.
Within days, the wall design started taking shape. We used our favourite hand tool, a short squared-off garden shovel with sharp teeth, to isolate larger trees in the foreground from the ones in the middle and background. We shaped the trees with smaller chisels and sanders. If we made a mistake, we’d fix it quickly by creating “snice” (snow and ice): We’d put fresh snow in a bucket and hold a heat gun over it while vigorously mixing with our waterproof mitts. This creates a packing snow that can easily be reworked into the wall.
The free-standing poplar trees that line the hall were carved from massive blocks of snow, first with a chainsaw, and then with smaller shovels and sanders to create a bark-like texture.
Dawn Detarando/Voyager Art Inc.
The building crew helped us get started on our free-standing poplar trees. They brought in large snow blocks, each roughly 1,600 pounds and over a metre high, and placed them in position along the hall. Brian used a chainsaw to reveal the basic tree trunk and then honed down the shape with the smaller shovel and sanders.
As we progressed into week two, our space, which was a main conduit to other areas of the hotel, was a flurry of passing artists and workers, who were either local or had come from around the world.
By end of that week, we had convinced the electrical team that the sound of local birds would make the space more thrilling and within days, there were several speakers embedded in the ceiling to play recordings of birdsong.
A few days before opening, an ice chandelier was installed in the main hall by tractor and a slow-moving winch. The chandelier transformed the space from a wilderness oasis into a magically whimsical winter wonderland.
Tap to see Cathedral Grove come to life
Brian McArthur/Voyager Art Inc.; Asaf Kliger/ICEHOTEL
For the next few months, until the hotel melts in April, guests will enter the Icehotel to the sound of birds chirping while they weave through our carved trees under the dappled light filtered through the icy canopy.
While snow remains underappreciated in fine art circles, our work with this short-lived medium has been transformative and insightful. Our hope is that this project moves those who encounter it and inspires a deep appreciation for the evanescent beauty of snow and the winter season that we love so much.