This Is Winter Camping—At the Only Ice Hotel in the Americas
I puff out my cheeks and release a warm breath into the frigid air. The room is so cold that it forms a thick cloud of condensation, hanging heavy for a moment before fading away. It mirrors the heaviness in my eyes and limbs, but I’m not sure that I’ll sleep at all tonight.
And really, I can’t pretend I didn’t see this coming. I’m not sure what else I expected when I signed up to spend the night in a hotel made entirely of ice.
My room at Hôtel de Glace, located in Saint-Gabriel-de-Valcartier, Quebec, a short 20-minute drive from Quebec City, has walls of ice featuring elaborate carvings and designs, an ice bed frame (topped with wood and, to be fair, a blissfully comfortable mattress), even an ice sitting area. Earlier tonight, I was treated to dinner at a restaurant built completely from ice—created in partnership with Fairmont Le Château Frontenac, opening January 15 this year—and sipped a cocktail from a glass carved out of ice in a bar made of ice. At this point, ice may as well be my middle name.
Luckily, the few things not made of ice are exactly what I’ll be relying on to make it through the night: a -30 C-rated sleeping bag, a pillow, my trusty Yeti water bottle (filled to the brim with boiled water—a make shift hot water bottle to tuck into my sleeping bag as an extra defense against the cold), travel mug (keeping hot chocolate on standby) and a fresh set of Woolove merino wool layers layered under a cozy Finisterre fleece.
As someone who’s genuinely terrified of being cold, despite enduring what feels like an eternal winter every year in my home city of Calgary, Alberta, I’ve wound up here to prepare for a future winter camping trip. I’m hoping this experience will test my overnight cold-weather skills, but with a little more comfort and style, and, most importantly, the reassurance that a warm hotel room and access to steaming hot tubs are just steps away if I need them.
Let’s not forget the sheer novelty and thrill of staying in a structure made entirely of ice either. And Hôtel de Glace is the only place you can have this experience in North America.
This year’s theme, coming on the heels of the hotel’s 25th anniversary last year, is the Hôtel de Glace Comes to Life. The space—which is built with 500 tons of ice and 30,000 tons of snow on over 50,000 square feet of land—invites visitors into a world where ice and snow become light, movement and design.
Guy-Olivier Deveau, Artistic Director of Hôtel de Glace, says sculptures can take one to three days to complete depending on their complexity, while a single room in the ice hotel typically requires three to five days to build. “We know how to handle the ice, we know how to handle the snow,” he says, noting the fragility of the medium and the collaboration with more than 20 freelance artists at the height of the season. “The fun thing about ice is that it’s such a quick medium—you can iterate on it very quickly.”
Continuing this year is the hotel’s collaboration with the Wendat Nation, in partnership with Tourisme Wendake. Ancestral stories are woven into the sculpted spaces, blending art, culture and nature in a setting designed to be as fleeting as it is meaningful. A section of the Grand Hall is dedicated to showcasing Wendat culture, complemented by exclusive cultural days featuring ancestral storytelling and an artisan market, offering visitors a deeper connection to the heritage of the land.
And the outdoor adventure extends well beyond the night itself. Just steps from the hotel lies access to the largest winter playground in the Americas, offering everything from high-speed snow slides and snow rafting to a softly illuminated skating path, something for every kind of adventurer.
Later, wrapped in layers and tucked deep into my sleeping bag, I sleep long and soundly, breathing in crisp, ice-scented air and feeling more connected to winter than I have in years. What I feared most—the cold—becomes manageable, even familiar, when met with the right preparation and mindset. By morning, Hôtel de Glace feels less like a novelty and more like a training ground: a reminder that winter doesn’t have to be conquered to be respected, and that stepping outside your comfort zone can be the best way to expand it.
