Entry 1: Icehotel
Jukkasjärvi, Sweden
Jukkasjärvi is a small village on the Torne River, well inside the Arctic Circle. The river freezes hard every winter, and that ice is the hotel's building material.
Each year invited artists design a new set of art suites, so the rooms change from season to season. Indoors it is always colder than a fridge. Beds are blocks of ice with a mattress and reindeer skins on top, and guests get sleeping bags made for the cold. Heated rooms and chalets share the grounds. A permanent ice building, chilled all year, keeps some frozen rooms open even in summer, and on dark winter nights the northern lights often show overhead.