Building with ice

Monek Marie

If you live in the right area and have enough ice you can make building or ice houses. (this topic was brought up in another link.)

Twenty minutes away we have a March event where they build a huge ice castle. It takes several weeks and a lot of helping hands. Even in a warmer winter, once built, it will last a month. Our march weather will be starting to warm up so it stands a month or two.

They use ice from Lake Erie and cut the blocks with chain saws. They use an old wood sled to get them to the place they need them and then start the building. Its an amazing sight

Photos from New York News, Mayville page and google images

karenjanicki

So cool!

LaurieLovesLearning

@Denise Grant How lucky that you have something close.

Our provincial capital had something like this in 2019. They called it an ice castle. I don't think it was a hotel. It was a huge complex with outbuildings & more. It cost so much to go see it that we didn't figure that it was worth our while to travel for and it quickly sold out of tickets.

Some of the fancy things that were made were created by spraying fine mist over certain areas. The guy who designed & oversaw the building was from Asia, where he designed fantastic ice buildings.

Last year the weather didn't cooperate, and this year, well...

In Quebec, they regularly build an ice hotel (just as in...Norway, I think?), and have themed rooms where people can spend the night if they have the money. Some I have seen commissioned specific artists to design & decorate their own room, from ice, of course! The pictures that I have seen of the interiors, complete with huge, lit chandeliers in those hotels were phenomenal!

I think they would be quite magical to tour, and in a lot of ways, always one of a kind.