The pretty leaves are mostly gone from the trees in rural Quebec and that means it's time for Jacques Desbois to start building his world-famous hotel again.
When the leaves start budding next spring, Desbois will hire a bulldozer to crush his amazing hotel and let it run off into the woods to nourish those awakening maples.
He builds Quebec's renowned Ice Hotel.
And if you're still debating whether to pay up to $775 a night to sleep on a bed of ice in a sparkling room of ice, don't delay. The 36 bedrooms in The Ice Hotel sell out quickly each year and in 2008 Quebec City will be overrun with visitors as it celebrates its 400th anniversary. By Thanksgiving The Ice Hotel had already sold out 10 nights.
Even if your Christmas bills will be consuming your spare cash during the first three months of the New Year, you can still enjoy the marvel of living in The Ice Hotel. For $15 per adult, or $42 per family, you can be a day-guest in the hotel until 8 p.m. You're welcome to sit on a chair of ice and drink martinis from a glass of ice in the charming and intimate N'Ice Club. Or you can host a sales and marketing meeting in the ballroom, or get married in the Chapel of Ice and invite 50 guests.
The chapel, with thick animal skins draped over its two dozen pews of ice, witnessed 32 weddings last winter.
"One groom wore a kilt at his wedding and after 10 minutes he was trying to speed up the ceremony so he could go put his pants on," said Manager Jean-Paul Gignac.
It takes Desbois five weeks to build his 30,000-square-foot hotel, using 500 tons of ice and 15,000 tons of snow. He is scheduled to open his doors on Jan. 4. An ice making firm in Montreal has already started freezing large blocks of ice for building blocks. The snow is made with snow guns, just like ski hills use.
Artists are now finalizing their designs for the intricate works of art carved from ice that will adorn the hotel's suites, corridors, ballroom, pub and grand lobby.
This will be the eighth season for Desbois' cool hotel. He is no stranger to building ice structures. In the previous century he built small igloos in the Quebec countryside for vacationers to experience an Inuit night.
In 1995 he heard about Sweden's ice hotel in Jukkasjarvi and had to see it. He connected with the Swedish builders, studied their procedures for five years and in 2001 opened North America's first and only ice hotel, 25 minutes outside Quebec City at Sainte-Catherine-de-la-Jacques-Cartier.
Building a large hotel from ice is easy, compared to trying to find a bank to lend you the money, said Desbois. Eventually, he persuaded the Quebec Tourist Board and unions representing Quebec tourism workers to share his vision.
When construction starts in November the tall pillars of ice blocks will hold up a steel and wooden frame that will be filled with snow. As the snow is compacted and hardened with ice, the frame will be removed and on Jan. 4 a hotel will be standing there made of nothing but ice and snow and lots of thick animals' skins.
The skins are draped over beds, pews and chairs. More than 70,000 day visitors frolicked in the hotel last winter, including exploring the bedrooms. And there were more than 4,000 overnight guests last season, some staying for three nights, many coming back for the second or third year in a row. The guests come from around the world, particularly to get married in the ice chapel.
Overnight guests are issued an Arctic sleeping bag, a flashlight and a map on how to find the bathrooms ultra clean and comfortable temporary facilities outside.
There is no electricity in the hotel. At night the corridors are lined with small candles. Rooms are also lighted with candles and some have fireplaces but the heat goes up the exhaust pipe.
The four-foot thick ice walls keep the temperature at -5 C in the hotel, which is a lot warmer than the -30 C weather you'll find outside in the Quebec countryside.
Like other classic hotels, there's usually a variety of events underway at The Ice Hotel, from rock concerts, to fashion shows, to business meetings. And the hotel is popular with commercial and movie producers too.
Among the additional services offered just outside the 20-foot high lobby of the The Ice Hotel are dogsled rides, ice fishing, snowmobiling, cross-country skiing, saunas, plus fine dining and flush toilets in a permanent resort 200 yards away. And you can tour Quebec City by helicopter from the parking lot of The Ice Hotel.
On April Fools Day Debois hires a bulldozer to flatten his cool hotel. "As the temperatures warm up, the structure weakens and we don't want kids sneaking in after we're closed and getting hurt in a collapse," he said.
More information about The Ice Hotel is available at www.icehotel-canada. com" or toll free at 1-877-505-0423.
© 2007 Osprey Media Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Illustration:
• The ceiling in the lobby is 20 feet high behind this front entrance to The Ice Hotel near Quebec City.
Idnumber: 200710270076
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