JUKKASJARVI, Sweden, Dec 25 (Reuters) We woke on Christmas morning in the frozen silence of a hotel made of ice and snow, a unique shrine to an Arctic under threat from climate change.
Reluctantly leaving the warmth of our Icehotel sleeping bags, we went out into the twilight darkness of polar night.
After the heavy silence of the room, the outside world was alive with sound -- the pealing of Christmas bells at the ice church, the baying of sled dogs and the hum of snowmobiles.
It was about minus 10 degrees Celsius in a world completely adapted to extreme cold.
The Icehotel's chief executive Yngve Bergqvist decided 15 years ago a giant igloo could lure tourists to a part of Sweden shunned in winter and he has little time for the idea that a warming earth could soon threaten his business.
Surveying the ice-pillared hall from a petal-shaped throne under a ice crystal chandelier, he admits the season is getting shorter but says this is the coldest winter he has experienced in his years planning the hotel.
Nils Torbjorn Nutti, a Sami reindeer herder who leads sleigh tours, isn't so sanguine. The deep wet snow created by the warmer weather has made life tough for his animals.
Reindeer eat lichen, or white reindeer moss, which they can smell and dig to through a metre of snow. But the wet snow of recent winters is difficult to move and often the Sami have to resort to factory food to stop their animals starving.
''My father, he says it's the reindeer who should feed you, not the opposite way. Of course, when it's bad times you must do it so they survive,'' Nutti said.
''If the climate is going to be like researchers are talking about and what we already seeing ... of course it's going to affect us here.'' His biggest fear is that it will eventually become too expensive to keep reindeer, a disaster for the Sami even if people found other work. ''If we lost our animals -- that's our soul,'' he said. ''That's something I cannot think about.'' THE MOTHER OF THE ICEHOTEL Despite his lack of concern about global warming, Bergqvist is reverent about ice and the Torne River that supplies it.
''That's the mother of the Icehotel,'' he said with a wave of his hand in the direction of the Torne.
He takes its water each year to make ice glasses and artwork for ice bars in Milan, Tokyo, London, Copenhagen and Stockholm.
''There is so much water here. We are using around 100 million litres of water for this project and 100 million litres of water has passed twice during the minutes we have been sitting here, outside, under the ice.'' The ice bars help fund artists like Julia Adzuki, who create the spectacular luxury suites that cost up to 6,500 Swedish crowns a night.
Adzuki, an Australian, has been an Icehotel artist for five years. She met her American husband Mark Szulgit, a nine-year veteran, at the hotel and likes the idea of making art that will return to the river in spring.
''The snow is very forgiving. The ice is obviously a bit more brittle but it's a really soft material, surprisingly. It's nothing like stone, it's more like sculpting butter,'' she said.
REUTERS MS VC1755
Reluctantly leaving the warmth of our Icehotel sleeping bags, we went out into the twilight darkness of polar night.
After the heavy silence of the room, the outside world was alive with sound -- the pealing of Christmas bells at the ice church, the baying of sled dogs and the hum of snowmobiles.
It was about minus 10 degrees Celsius in a world completely adapted to extreme cold.
The Icehotel's chief executive Yngve Bergqvist decided 15 years ago a giant igloo could lure tourists to a part of Sweden shunned in winter and he has little time for the idea that a warming earth could soon threaten his business.
Surveying the ice-pillared hall from a petal-shaped throne under a ice crystal chandelier, he admits the season is getting shorter but says this is the coldest winter he has experienced in his years planning the hotel.
Nils Torbjorn Nutti, a Sami reindeer herder who leads sleigh tours, isn't so sanguine. The deep wet snow created by the warmer weather has made life tough for his animals.
Reindeer eat lichen, or white reindeer moss, which they can smell and dig to through a metre of snow. But the wet snow of recent winters is difficult to move and often the Sami have to resort to factory food to stop their animals starving.
''My father, he says it's the reindeer who should feed you, not the opposite way. Of course, when it's bad times you must do it so they survive,'' Nutti said.
''If the climate is going to be like researchers are talking about and what we already seeing ... of course it's going to affect us here.'' His biggest fear is that it will eventually become too expensive to keep reindeer, a disaster for the Sami even if people found other work. ''If we lost our animals -- that's our soul,'' he said. ''That's something I cannot think about.'' THE MOTHER OF THE ICEHOTEL Despite his lack of concern about global warming, Bergqvist is reverent about ice and the Torne River that supplies it.
''That's the mother of the Icehotel,'' he said with a wave of his hand in the direction of the Torne.
He takes its water each year to make ice glasses and artwork for ice bars in Milan, Tokyo, London, Copenhagen and Stockholm.
''There is so much water here. We are using around 100 million litres of water for this project and 100 million litres of water has passed twice during the minutes we have been sitting here, outside, under the ice.'' The ice bars help fund artists like Julia Adzuki, who create the spectacular luxury suites that cost up to 6,500 Swedish crowns a night.
Adzuki, an Australian, has been an Icehotel artist for five years. She met her American husband Mark Szulgit, a nine-year veteran, at the hotel and likes the idea of making art that will return to the river in spring.
''The snow is very forgiving. The ice is obviously a bit more brittle but it's a really soft material, surprisingly. It's nothing like stone, it's more like sculpting butter,'' she said.
REUTERS MS VC1755
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