Out in the Cold: A Norway Night @ Sorrisniva Igloo Hotel
I love the snow.
I'm not a chionophile in a traditional sense, ( a plant or person who thrives in the cold weather) - I thrive next to a roaring fire inside during the storm - but in the literal sense [from Greek chion=snow + phile = lover of] I'm the chion-est of philes - I adore looking at the frozen fluff, and all the magic it brings; the lacy polar quilts that blanket even the dirties of cities, transforming them into wonderlands (at least until it all turns to grey slush...) And I do enjoy a nippy (short) walk in the pure, crisp air.
Hand me a hot chocolate with fat marshmallows & splash of Baileys, HOME ALONE with icicles out my window, a WHITE CHRISTMAS, Billy Murray carving my bust in ice on GROUNDHOG'S DAY (head, not breast - get your mind out of the gutter!) and I'll be in a frosty paradise, (how did Dante🥚 ever conceive such a scene as hell?)
I love snow so much, I voluntarily moved to Syracuse | NY, snowiest city in the continental US, for college. Once, in high school, I built an igloo with my best friend, Kylie, in her backyard (while stranded at her house for a week during a snow storm.) We snuck outside in the middle of the night to sleep in it, against her mothers' objections and fears of us suffocating or freezing to death.
(There was no danger of freezing, the small enclosed space was stiflingly hot in no time from our body heat, but we nearly did suffocate and had to go back inside due to the dual mistakes of a bean-heavy dinner and allowing her brother to camp out with us.)
So it's no surprise, staying at a proper Igloo was top of my list when I began my travels!
Arctic Ice hotels have been growing in popularity for those who enjoy unique travel experiences. They combine novelty with high art, luxury hotel dining & comfort, and many offer related excursions.
In 2024 I was lucky enough to stay at the Sorrisniva Igloo Hotel in the Alta* valley in Norway's North Cape, and it was an amazing experience!
High-end hotels aren't within the price range** of my normal "budget travel" adventures, but an Ice-Hotel is such a once-in-a-lifetime trip it was worth every øre.^
^ Norweignan kroner equivalent to a penny.
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Sorrisniva Igloo Hotel . . .
. . .is the World's Northernmost Igloo Hotel, (1st in Norway & 2nd ever Ice -Hotel of its kind in the world.)
Originally a farming and salmon fishing village, the name Sorrisniva is a description of the gurgling sound of river water flowing over the nearby Alta River's beds.
The arctic resort has been run by the Wisløff family for over 30 years; Finnish immigrants who have lived at Sorrisniva since 1885, and their family's pride in the establishment is evident in the kindness, personal attention and professional thoroughness of their entire staff.
Third generation brothers, Hans Ulrik & Tor Kjetil began in 1970 by offering riverboat safaris through Alta Canyon (Europe's largest river canyon.) The first Sorrisniva Igloo Hotel later opened in Alta in 1999, with six frozen rooms, and has been growing in fame and creativity ever since.
Alta - possibly from álahta = place of assembly / meeting place, or alde = river both indigenous Sami words (it's believed the Sami people, who've inhabited the region for thousands of years, used the area around the Alta River as a gathering place for trade/ social exchange.) Alternately it could be from Old Norse alt = high / tall, [from Latin altus = high/ elevated] a reference nearby mountains, or Finnish alto = wave referencing the nearby fjord. - Formerly Alten in Norwegian, changed to Alta in the 1960's to reflect the Sami pronunciation/ spelling; Áltá, it is known as the city of the Northern Lights
Sorrisniva's Igloo is over 8,000 ft2, and is made from 250 tons of ice + ~23,000 ft3 of snow. It takes about five weeks to construct with the igloo structure made in layers and the rooms then fitted with ice furniture, ice sculptures and other ice art, all made with fresh water ice cut from a mountain lake in nearby Sierravann | Alta Valley.
Open from late December to early April, the Igloo Hotel features an impressive ice art gallery and 20+ bedrooms including Igloo suites; one-of-a-kind creations built by local craftsmen and hand-carved by skilled ice sculptors, all with a yearly theme; like Nordic Legends, Norwegian wildlife, Vikings, or a particular local myth or history celebrated each year.
When I visited, I flew in via Tromsø, from Svalbard, (though Alto does have an airport, for those not coming from the middle of nowhere,) I was straight off my Dogsledding Adventure in Longyearbyen, so the bar for being impressed was raised high, but Sorrisniva did not disappoint!
I bonded with my Norwegian cab driver over Peter Sellers & the original PINK PANTHER movies, of all things, and arrived at the hotel early in the day. (I'm usually a public transport girl, but not surprisingly, there isn't a public bus to the arctic wilderness. The resort does offer mini-bus transport for guests though, and will assist in booking taxis.)
Check in is at the adjacent Arctic Wilderness Lodge. With 24 glass faced rooms, with stunning views of the river, the lodge offers more traditional luxury accommodations for those who want to visit the Igloo, but still sleep in regular bed with central heating. (And it's open year round, so can also be enjoyed under the summer midnight sun.)
As the Igloo is open to public tours during the day,^ you don't check directly into your room, like you would at a conventional hotel. Instead, you leave your luggage in a secure storage room; and, in truth, there's no need to ever bring all your belongs into the freezing Igloo, since the showers etc. are inside the nearby lodge. (While there are toilets located in an attached warm building, in addition those in the lodge, I was slightly bummed by ice-plumbing not being a thing just for sake of continuity.. but really how could an ice sink work?)
After storing my bags, I excitedly headed over to main attraction & Ice-Art Gallery.
^ Even if you aren't staying at either the Ice Hotel or Wilderness lodge there are guided Igloo tours which include learning about the construction and the option of enjoying one of their famous blue ice drinks at the ice bar.
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INSIDE the IGLOO WORLD
The Ice-Hotel looked like less like a traditional igloo than a massive snow "long-house" from the outside; glitteringly, blindingly white in the arctic sun. But once you descend the short slope and entered it's carved snow gates the world turns ice-blue...
There are no windows (for obvious practical reasons) so all the lighting must be artificial (and LED so as not produce any heat) and the designers use it artfully to increase the visual appeal and other worldly atmosphere of the igloo. This year the frozen foyer glowed cobalt blue. It was like walking into the magical realm of Norse myth Ice-Giants.
There is something different about the igloo air too; it's cold, obviously, literally freezing cold,^ and weirdly dry, as the moisture is all trapped in solid form, but without being biting or sharp. Unlike in collage, when winter winds in Syracuse made every inhale a jagged ice attack, this was a calm cold my whole body was at peace with, despite it being a deeper chill than my lungs had ever experienced before. It smelled both clean, like fresh fallen snow, and stale at the same time, encased in stillness and silence.
And yes, it is eerily silent inside, even when there are other people about. It's slightly unsettling at first until you recognize what it is that sounds off; it's the snow absorbing sound waves, so words die quicker once they've left your mouth; they vibrate only momentarily and then get snuffed out of existence when the reach a snow bank wall. The combined effect of still air, silence and colored LEDs only partially illuminating the halls creates an eery. other worldly atmosphere, equal parts foreign unease and serene comfort.
Past the entrance hall I slid into the main art gallery, a long room filled with carved ice & snow wall art and gorgeous, delicate sculptures, including a Sorrisniva ice throne perfect for instagram 📸 selfies. Off this gallery was an ice saloon, where the bar was a massive ice sculpture of a viking galley serving drinks nightly from ice glasses. In an alcove there was a small snow slide and adjacent to the bar was a full chapel (where, yes, you can hold christenings and even get married in ice.)
All of the art was stunning but my personal favorite was the snow sculpture of a baby polar bear balanced on their supine parent bears' paws.
Off the far end of the gallery were two halls of the hotel bedrooms, all open during the day to be toured. There were basic, monastic-like snow cubbies, single & family sized, and then the masterpieces; individually themed suites each designed and hand-carved by a different ice artist.
The year I visited there was an Aladdin themed room (an intriguing contrast of hot, Arabian desert motifs in ice) a Troll suite and one dedicated to a goddess^^ with massive snakes coiled at the foot of the bead and her figurehead glowing at it's head.
^ With a steady temperature of ~22ºF ( -5ºC)
^^ I think she may have been a variant of the ancient Mesopotamian Inanna-Ishtar
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Back @ the LODGE . . .
. . . I had a soul-warming bowl of fiskesuppe (creamy, traditional Norwegian fish stew,) for lunch with Sorrisniva's homemade crusty bread, perfect for sopping, as I sat by the central fire pit in the iconic & inviting in-house casual restaurant, Lavvu; it's domed design inspired by the eponymous Sami Lavvu.
Lavvu / lávvu - or sametelt; a round tipi-like temporary dwelling of the Sami, made of canvas & wood beams with a central pit fire. (Less vertical than it's Indigenous Native America cousins' version though, so as to survive the high arctic winds)
I then perused the gift shop and checked out the cedar sauna, (where they offer massages and an outdoor Jacuzzi, open even in winter!) before sitting down to a second spectacular meal that evening at the more intimate in-house Maku Restaurant with it's 3, 5 or 8 course chef's tasting menu of elevated traditional Norwegian cuisine.
Maku means taste in Kven (a Finnic language spoken in the far northern parts of Norway by only 5,000 - 8,000 Kven people, sometimes considered dialect of Finnish)
Both Sorrisniva restaurants are known for their gentle ambiance and exquisite food, complimented by an extensive wine cellar. They use the regions small-scale producers, like locally smoked or cured fish, and reindeer, as well as ingredients they gather directly themselves from the surrounding forrest, fjords and sea, like fresh caught salmon or wild multe, (cloudberries in English); tart, almost spicy, wild orange berries, that look like golden raspberries, and only grow in the Nordic tundra.
I splurged and had the cured moose with sour cream & lingonberry jam, (served on a natural wood disc still ringed in bark,) followed by roasted hare with beetroot & Jerusalem artichoke in a currant sauce, and cloudberries with white chocolate, and brunost (brown cheese)^^ for desert. All of which I could watch being prepared in the open galley kitchen.
The resort also offers a wide range of wilderness activities, and after dinner I took advantage with a fascinating Sami guided reindeer sleigh-ride hunt for the Northern Lights. (In 1989 Sorrisniva was the first ever to host Norwegian snowmobile safaris through the Finnmark wilds and today, in addition to the Sami cultural excursions they also have snowshoeing, husky sledding, ice bathing, whale watching, horseback riding, hiking & biking, rafting, crabbing, helicopter rides(!) and you can even learn to carve your own ice-sculpture.)
Well fed and worn from all the excitement, it was time to bed down in my ice room for the night...
^ Lavvu can even be rented out for special occasions and events.
^^ Brunost, a sweet, caramel-flavored "cheese," is made from whey, milk & cream. But the popular Norwegian brown "cheese" is not technically cheese, [as traditionally formed by the coagulation of the milk protein casein after the addition of rennet or similar bacterial enzymes, with solid curds then separated from liquid whey pressed into cheese] is It is not technically cheese]
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To SLEEP, PERCHANCE to DREAM
Having been the first guest to arrive, the staff was kind enough to let me choose my Igloo suite and I picked Yggdrasil (The World Tree of Norse Mythology.)
Yggdrasil^ = Odin's horse / gallows; Old Norse [ Ygg(r) - alternate name for Odin + drasill = horse.] In the myths Odin hangs himself from the tree, in order to gain "knowledge of runes," and in Norse, an idiom for gallows was "horses of the hanged" thus the World Tree, which Odin made his gallows, began to be referred to as Odin's horse. Related: Yggr as a name for Odin = the terrible one, [literal yggr = terror] so the tree's name could also mean terror gallows rather than referencing the Odinic name.
The Yggdrasil suite featured an ice engraved, encircled tree, beautifully back lit, and the large ice shelf / bed was covered in thick reindeer skins & pillows. The decor was more subdued than the elaborate carvings in some of the other suites, for sure, but it was cozy and felt more authentic to Norway than the novelty of Arabia (& the God-fearer in me couldn't stomach bedding beneath a massive pagan snow idol; the less personified paganism of the mythic tree didn't quite as sacrilegious.)
Walking through the frozen halls, with my hotel provided hardcore thermal sleeping bag, felt even more alien at night - the echo-less silence was broken only by the soft crunch of snow beneath boots and the polyester swoosh of snow-panted thighs brushing past each other with each step.
I brought very little to the room, just my camera and me, (clad in long johns, wool socks, and fully bundled in hat, coat and gloves,^^) but I did rember to bring my mother ( a small framed photo of my late mom & that comes with me on all my travels.) My suite had a little 'front sitting-room' with ice table & chairs and that's where she set up for the night.
The utter darkness when I turned off the LEDs, the primal, earthy smell of fur & wet, and the complete and total quiet & stillness - it was a bit like being in a deprivation tank, not all sensations were missing, they were just so foreign as to be unrecognizable, and I quickly lost track of time and the outside world. I just was, just existed in this weird frozen place, and seemingly had for ages unaccounted; the haunting sense of isolation was exhilarating and disturbing (despite there being other people in the igloo, I neither saw nor heard them that night.)
I suspect my sense of disconnect is not an uncommon reaction to the otherness of these rooms, (they make sure you know, you can always come back inside, at anytime during the night to sleep on the guest lounge chaises, should you find the igloo too cold, or just too much,) but once I made friends with the void and was at peace with my strange new existence I was able to sleep quite comfortably. The room didn't heat up the way it had in Kylie's backyard all those years ago; it was much to spacious for my tiny amount of body heat to make a difference overall, but cocooned inside the sleeping bag, it kept me toasty, and I slept in the igloo the full night, (sans any bean-related interruptions this time.)
^ From the 13th century compilation by Icelandic historian, Snorri Sturluson; the PROSE EDDA & earlier POETIC EDDA (likely from much older oral traditions) - the Yggdrasil is an immense ash (or yew) sacred in Norse cosmology at the center of all things, connecting the Nine Worlds. The Norse would plant a care or guardian tree, in the centre of their homestead - a miniature versions of Yggdrasil; the tree's soul forever tied to the family. (These myths*** were a huge influence on George R. R. Martin's GAME OF THRONES, and may also be related to origins of Germanic Christmas trees.)
^^ Sorrisniva has put together very helpful little guides on how to dress and sleep in an Igloo
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I woke the next morning refreshed and ready for my next adventure (headed down to Olso and their crazy floating saunas...) but not until after a tasty, satisfying continental breakfast of smoked salmon, dried meats, cheeses, yogurts, berries, a variety of breads (including gluten free options!) and the traditional Norwegian waffles.
I left Sorrisniva with a full belly, an experience I will never forget, and a more nuanced perspective and appreciation for life in the arctic and what lies in the silence inside my own soul.
Have you ever slept at an Ice Hotel or Igloo? How did you like it? What room would you have chosen to sleep in? Let me know all about your arctic sleepover experiences in the comments below!
For your unique arctic experience reservations can be made @ https://www.sorrisniva.no/hotels/igloo-hotel
or contact info@sorrisniva.no +47 784 33 378 Sorrisniva 20, 9518 Alta | NO
* Alta is considered by some the northernmost city in the world; Longyearbyen | Svalbard is more northernly but based on it's size it may be better described as a town, rather than a proper city.
** While some Unmoored Travel content is 'sponsored,' I NEVER endorse anything on the site on that I would not otherwise gladly endorse for free. In this instance, I was so excited to try an Ice Hotel, even with it being out of my normal budget, that I reached out to Sorrisniva. They were kind enough to offer a discount allowing me to share this experience with you, despite the fact that website wasn't even up yet, so I can whole heartedly recommend them not just for their amazing accommodations but their awesome and inviting staff and management!
*** A massive dragon, Níðhöggr, the Bane Biter, wraps around & bitesYggdrasils roots, and the 1st man; Ask, & woman; Embla, originated from acorns of Yggdrasil (which apparently encompasses more than one tree species as they're said to be from Ash & Elm respectively.) All humans are said to spring from the fruit of Yggdrasil and are collected by storks, who deliver them to their mothers (a tradition which survives to this day!)
Odin's also goes by Valdr galga (Ruler of Gallows), Svipall (Changing, Shape-shifter), Jolfr (horse-wolf, bear) plus ~150 more titles, partly a consequence of conflating so many regional sky father gods into one. - Flaming Eye, Spearman, Lord of the Undead, The One Who Rides Forth, Wanderer, Deceiver, Riddler, Blind Guest, Twice Blinded, Hooded One, Lord of the Hanged, Battle Wolf, Barrow Lord, Screamer, Raven God, Raven Tester, Shaggy Cloak Wearer, Wagon God, God of Riders, Mover of Constellations, Reed Bringer, Sleep bringer, Foe of the Wolf, Father of the Slain, Smith of Battle & on….
Interestingly parts of the EDDA imply Yggdrasil and Odin are the same underlying thing; when hung, Odin says he has ‘sacrificed himself onto himself’ creating an odd parallel to the concept of the trinity; unity of separate parts of a godhead, and the story of Christ hung on his 'tree' son sacrificed to father (who is himself) - (In old English the word treow, actually means both tree and truth) - Norway began it's conversion to Christianity ~1000 AD and it would seem some of elements of Christian stories may have been retroactively absorbed into Norse mythology, (the same way pagan elements were conjoined with Christian celebrations,) note the similarity to Adam & Eve creation names and that the tree is associated with the gaining of previously hidden knowledge.
Another theory of the etymology of Yggdrasil translates drasill = walker or pioneer, and in yet another Yggdrasil = yew pillar [ with yggia from igwja =yew-tree + drasill from dher = support.]
Related: in Gaulish Deru = tree, as used in the word Derwydd: a bard priest [Deru + Wydd or Tree Witt (wisdom)] which became Druid and spawned the traditional Celtic saying, an Enya classic, "the memory of trees."
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