'I’d only made a snowman before' – meet the British father-daughter team behind this year’s Icehotel

“I’d never sculpted anything out of ice or snow before,” says Jonathan Green, one of the designers behind this year’s Icehotel. “Apart from the odd snowman.”

You couldn’t tell. I am chatting with Jonathan and his 19-year-old daughter Marnie in the Icehotel suite that they have spent the past two weeks chiselling and chainsawing out of ice. Jonathan may have never worked with ice before, but as a TV set designer for shows like Fleabag and QI, he has plenty of experience in creating a scene with impact.

The Icehotel is based in the village of Jukkasjärvi, 200km north of the Arctic Circle. The resort may be firmly etched onto the tourist map, but geographically speaking you’re in the wildest northern reaches of Europe here. As the crow flies, the Icehotel is closer to Svalbard than it is to Malmö.

Such is the popularity of the concept that, in 2016, they built a year-round Icehotel 365 here, meaning guests can sleep ‘on the ice’ in a -5°C room even at the height of summer. But the star of the show remains the seasonal Icehotel – built entirely out of water from the Torne River – that has been erected here every winter since its first incarnation in 1989.

British duo Jonathan and Marnie are two of the 33 artists from 13 countries who were selected to design rooms for this year’s Icehotel. Their concept, The Living Ocean, is an underwater ice cave with lit-up fish swimming along the cavernous sides, a shark emerging from the coral and a giant whale gliding overhead.

“It is about preserving our oceans and understanding how beautiful they are,” says Marnie, “and the severe effects that we as humans have on them.”

Their idea may be clear, but being selected to design a room at the Icehotel is more work than just creating a 3D model. Artists must travel out to Sweden and build their vision, too. Jonathan explains that sculpting a room out of ice has been a learning curve.

“Without knowing how ice and snow behaves, it’s hard to know exactly what you’re getting into,” he says. “When we first got here the room was absolutely tiny because they’d done a bespoke room casting so we could carve the whale out of the ceiling.” This means that, for the first couple of days, there was a lot of chainsaw work before they could start chipping away at their design.

It’s a stressful job, working against the clock in such cold conditions (the mercury regularly drops below -20°C here), but the Green duo say they didn’t have a single argument during the process. “It’s so lovely to have another artist in the family,” says Jonathan. “Working alongside Marnie was really great. Being immersed in this place for two weeks, constantly day-in-day-out creating something together. The whole ethic of the Icehotel is family, and meeting with people, and linking with art.”

The Icehotel is constructed using over 1,000 blocks of ice and 30,000 cubic metres of ‘snice’ (a mix of snow and ice), all harvested from the Torne River that runs alongside the Icehotel. The quality of the water is a point of pride for the Jukkasjärvi locals.

“You can drink the water right out of the river,” says Arne Bergh, creative director of the Icehotel. “We get everything from the river. You may only use an ice glass once, or perhaps you get a refill, but there’s no waste – it’s just water. There’s no plastic pollution.”

“What fascinates me is that when the river slows down and freezes, time is freezing,” Arne says. “When you look into an ice block from the river, you are looking at a moment frozen into the ice - it’s like an inner world.”

Have they ever found anything unusual in the ice blocks? “Only once we’ve seen a fish in an ice block,” he smiles, “but usually it is totally clear.”

To Arne, the Icehotel is not a hotel but rather an art exhibition where you can sleep. And what makes the seasonal Icehotel so special is that it is a temporary structure – by late spring this giant igloo will have melted away.

“By midsummer, everything is gone, it’s all back in the river”, Arne says. “Many people feel sad about all the work we do. But for us it is an inspiration. After the hotel melts away we can bring in new artists, and come up with new ideas. We don't repeat, and we don’t copy. That’s the whole idea of the Icehotel.”

How to visit

Discover the World organises Icehotel packages from December to April, with direct flights. A classic three-night Icehotel break starts from £1,073 per person based on two sharing, with two nights in a warm room and one in an ice room on a B&B basis. Excursions can be added at an additional cost: husky sledding (from £122), snowmobiling (£168), ice sculpting (£65), northern lights safari (£168).