The Ice Man Sleepeth
Dressed only in boots and a base layer with a serious sleeping bag slung over my back, I pushed through a reindeer pelt door with an antler handle marked “Night Entrance” and began the nocturnal walk through Sweden’s Ice Hotel to my “Art Suite.” The silence in the hall was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, with snow walls absorbing every decibel of sound. My booted footsteps as they crunched on the snow and the sounds of my breathing were instantly devoured by the silence. It felt like the set from The Empire Strikes Back, or perhaps a look inside “The Wall” from Game of Thrones.
This year’s Ice Hotel 35 is the 35th year that it has been constructed. It melts every spring and is rebuilt every winter. In the spring, when the river ice of the adjacent River Torne is at its thickest, they cut Stonehenge-sized slabs of ice from the river—all crystal-clear and blueish like cartoon or fancy cocktail ice—and store it in a giant freezer building until the next winter when they rebuild the hotel for the season. There is even a building code specifically established for the Ice Hotel, one provision of which is that the walls have to be thicker than the roof so it will melt safely without collapsing. It is a marvel of human engineering and artistic imagination, and truly something out of a fantasy movie.
As I mentally prepared for my night on ice, I was fifteen minutes from finishing one of the best meals of my life—a 13-course Scandinavian smorgasbord of things like cloche-smoked Arctic Char and reindeer tenderloin—every course with wine pairings. The contrast between where I’d been and where I was headed was stark. Reaching my room, I drew back the thick curtain that served as a door and walked into an Art-Deco-inspired room titled “Yesterday’s Tomorrow,” created by South African designers Corban Warrington and Daniel Afonso. It was a futuristic vision of a hypothetical world in which Art Deco never ended; stunning to look at, but quite another thing to sleep in.
I took off my boots, shimmied into something like a human-sized pillowcase, then slid into the sleeping bag and rolled over onto a foam pad topped with reindeer pelts and zipped myself into a toasty cocoon where I fell instantly asleep. When I woke up, I was proud of having slept through the night. It was almost like no time has passed at all. I looked at my phone that I’d stuffed into a mitten so it wouldn’t freeze, and sure enough, I was right. No time had passed. I had only slept for thirty minutes. It was about time for the real night to start. A night that would force me to confront my demons, my lifelong claustrophobia, two treks to the bathroom back in the warm building, freezing sweat, and finally in the early hours of the morning a period of genuinely sound sleep.
When I finally de-cocooned from the sleeping bag to re-enter the warm life around 7 a.m., I had a strange feeling knowing that the room would cease to exist in a couple of months. I stepped into my boots, threw the sleeping bag over my shoulders, and hoofed it to a hot sauna before going to breakfast to compare notes with the four other journalists who had also spent the night in ice rooms. We didn’t need to say much—our eyes said it all. We had all gone through some things, each in his own way and according to his own demons, and we would be fairly exhausted that day. But we followed through where others bowed out, in spite of our creature comfort desires, a brotherhood of the Long Night. Did I leave feeling rested? No. But it sure made me feel elite.
Cryo For Cars
Kiruna is the northernmost city in Sweden. Two-hundred kilometers north of the Arctic Circle, it’s home to the Ice Hotel, the largest iron ore mine in the world (they are currently moving the town to make way for more mining) and Volvo’s northernmost testing facility, the Kiruna Proving Ground, where we spent the next day. In one cold-weather test at this facility, Volvo puts their vehicles in cold boxes and literally freezes them to test their mettle.
The garage-sized freezers bring the car down to -20 degrees Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit) and they test user experiences: how quickly it starts, what the steering wheel or the wood trim feels like, how long it takes to heat up, and then how well it drives. Volvo cars are tested all over the world, from South Africa to my hometown of Charleston, but the cold test is perhaps the most important test for a brand born in the Far North. “As a Swedish brand, our cars have to be able to handle the cold,” says John Lundgren, Volvo’s Engineering Manager for Driving Experience.
Spending a night in the Ice Hotel was my own version of a winter proving ground. I felt some kinship with the frost-covered XC90 that came out of the freezer when I got behind the wheel and took it for a few laps around a snowy track. You probably don’t have to freeze a car to know it can handle a cold snap, and you certainly don’t have to sleep in an ice room to prove your gumption as a journalist. But either way, it’s nice to know you can.
Moose Goulash
The Northern Lights can look like a whisp of clouds until you observe them through your camera and the colors emerge. We were standing on a frozen river with our snowmobiles parked in a row, gawking at the green-streaked sky through our digital screens. After getting our quota of “content,” we walked up a snow-covered dock to a small cabin the shape and size of a Yurt.
Inside a wood burning fireplace in the center of the room had already made it nice and toasty. Our guide, Lasse, was preparing a moose goulash on a camp stove with the silent focus of a chemist. We sat in a circle on built-in benches, watching transfixed as Lasse single-handedly prepared our meal. First came hot lingonberry juice, then moose goulash on which he piped crème fraiche. Lasse was not a large man, but as a fellow journalist pointed out, he radiated a calm authority. He wore a tool belt with gloves and a hunting knife, and he had also been our tour guide at the Ice Hotel. He came to the area as a summer fishing guide and has since became a yearlong jack of all trades. After the dinner wrapped up with panna cotta and coffee, Lasse packed up the entire feast, dishes and all, and loaded everything onto a sled that he attached to his snowmobile before leading us on an hour and a half adventure through the snowmobile trails that crisscrossed the surrounding woods.
That night as I fell asleep in one of the Ice Hotel’s “Warm Rooms,” I realized that I had never appreciated a warm bed or a hotel bathroom more in my life. As with the cars we’d tested that day, extreme cold has a way of helping you see very quickly what luxuries you value most.
Swedish Drift
The finale of our trip was a train ride away in the town of Luleå (Loo-Lee-Oh), near Volvo’s temporary winter ice track on Björnträsket lake, a land-locked body of water that freezes to a thickness capable of supporting a pair of test tracks that are plowed clean out of the thick snow covering the lake in winter. The ice is a meter thick, but there are visible cracks that are a tad off-putting, and you can hear a crackling sound when the 6,200-pound EX90s pulled in to park. We are instructed to park 3 meters (10 feet) apart to distribute the weight.
We spent the day on the ice track with the flagship luxury EX90 and the new and nimble EX30 Cross Country. Drifting on lake ice in an early lap, my partner put us into a 360 spin into a snowbank—what our driving instructor, Niclas Lindberg, called a Poof Experience. “Of all the experiences you can have today, that is the one that should be avoided,” said Lindberg. All afternoon we had both vehicles and both tracks to have our way with. The smaller track was for the electric EX30 Cross Country, while the larger track was for the fully-electric flagship EX90—the same vehicle that we used to get to and from our hotel 90 kilometers away.
Whenever I get the chance to do hot laps with professional drivers, I take it. Many men, especially automotive journalists, believe that they are great at driving. And some probably are. For every James May, there is a Jeremy Clarkson. But I know that I will never drive as well as a pro, and I was the only one that day who took Lindberg up on his offer to drive us around the track. He was surprised when I waved him over and gave up my spot behind the wheel. “Your turn,” I said.
Lindberg did not disappoint. Every single turn he made was a controlled drift. While us journos were wildly rotating the wheel, he barely touched it—and never turned it more than a few degrees. He knew how to drift through his turns instead of steering through them. It was a masterclass, and he didn’t even go that fast—just 50-65 kph—but he was able to initiate a drift and exit a drift at low speed with two-footed driving and a strong understanding of the vehicle.
After I switched back into the driver’s seat, I thought for a moment I might recreate some of his magic. But it was like being handed a guitar by Hendrix. My driving was fine, and I was certainly having fun, but I would need years to match his laps. What I could feel most during my time behind the wheel was that the traction control (TCS) and stability control (ESC) of both the EX90 and the EX 30 Cross Country were hard to believe. Even on solid ice, I never once felt a wheel spin even going from a dead stop to over 80 kph. I only drifted when I initiated one deliberately with the brake, and even in hairpin turns the stability control kicked in with brakes and power reduction to keep me on the track. I drove without ESC for a few laps just to see what it was like, and while it was fun to have full power in the turns, it’s something I’d only want to do with forgiving snowbanks surrounding me.
We drove back to Luleå in an EX90 that had been recharging while we did our drifting all day. Getting to drive that luxe SUV through the dreamy winter landscape was a mystical experience. Nearly all Swedish farmhouses in that area are painted red with white trim—an aesthetic holdover from a popular paint called Falun Red that originated in 16th-century Swedish copper mines. Most of these Falun Red houses are also lit with a single soft light in every window. So, it looks and feels like you’re driving through the North Pole. The idea of a culture that would voluntarily adhere to a common shared aesthetic is beyond my faith in humanity at the moment, and it certainly deepened my respect for Swedes.
The Last Circus
On our last night, there was a consensus in the group that we had eaten enough of Rudolph’s cousins. So, we swapped our dinner reservation at a fancy spot with a reindeer-heavy menu for a circus-themed Swedish tapas chain called Pinchos that was endearingly bizarre. It was a long tour by press trip standards. I’d gotten to know these people sitting around me at the table—a rogue’s gallery of journalists, YouTubers, and automotive influencers. We had witnessed the magic of pop-up moose goulash, some of us had shared the “Poof Experience,” and some had shared in the White Walker sleepover experience. Something about the absurdity of ordering a United Nations of tapas dishes and fruity cocktails via a mandatory app was, somehow, just what we needed. An excuse to not take ourselves too seriously on our last night together.
Volvos, and the people who make them, have a unique relationship with cold. After spending a week living in it, and a night sleeping in it, I think I understand something now. I’m reminded of Lasse, the guide who meticulously prepared and then broke down the feast in the cabin on the frozen river. And the simple genius of the elaborate snowmobile highways with homemade reflectors to mark the safe routes. And all those little soft white lights in the windows lighting up the long nights. People from up here are made different. And so, one can assume, are the things they make. Orders of operations, routine, tradition, and structure can be the difference between life or death in a land of slim margins of error.
The last time I visited Sweden with Volvo, the weather was warm, and I saw how the people make the brand. This time around, in the heart of winter, I got to see the way the cold makes the people.
Essential Gear For Swedish Arctic Adventure
I made a few good choices of gear for the Far North—these were the best.
ICEBUG ADAK REWOOL MICHELIN-SOLE BOOTS
These Swedish-designed winter boots kept me so warm I could opt out of the ones supplied by the Ice Hotel. The leather and wool are sourced from small Swedish producers, and the Michelin soles—while not as effective on ice as the studded variant—were perfect for a trip that would see me tromping through both airports and snowbanks. $249
FJALLRAVEN NUUK PARKA
I went with a Swedish parka for geographic fidelity, and found I was in the same coat as my Volvo hosts. It’s extremely warm without being excessively bulky, and the fur-trimmed hood kept my head warm if I went outside without a hat. Within a day of arriving in Sweden, I couldn’t imagine life without it. $500
VUARNET ARCTIC 01 SUNGLASSES
These sunglasses were made for arctic exploration. They’re made of Japanese titanium, with side shields and a removable leather nosepiece to protect your eyes from sun glare on snow, an integrated lanyard so you don’t lose them, and mineral glass lenses that are noticeably sharper than plastic lenses—especially good when you’re driving on a frozen lake and need to see every contour. $775
PEAK DESIGN EVERYDAY BACKPACK 30L
This backpack is my current EDC for every press trip, but it really shined in Sweden. It has compartments for my camera and video gear, laptop, tech pouch for adapters and cords, a wash pouch for toiletries, a water bottle, and it has an expending lid for bringing souvenirs home. It’s right at the limit of maxing out the under seat spot on a plane, and combined with a rolling carry-on was the perfect size for the weeklong trip. $299
SUUNTO VERTICAL TITANIUM SOLAR
Originating nearby in Finland, this smartwatch from Suunto was the perfect watch for this trip. Because the battery is augmented by solar power, you don’t have to bring a charging cord as it will stay charged for months. The automatic adjustment to local time and weather was very useful as I moved from one time zone and climate to another during the trip, all while keeping my steps and vitals handy. $699
MATADOR GLOBAL TRAVEL ADAPTER
Compact, with global plug types and a universal outlet, plus 2 USB-C ports (one high-watt for laptops) and 3 USB-A ports, I used this in every hotel room. $36 I paired it with a the compact and foldable ANKER MagGo ($78) wireless charger to keep my phone and headphones topped up nightly. My final key piece of tech was the wireless magnetic power bank from UAG ($55) which I could use for long days out on the track, or lend to those fellow journos who forgot plug adapters at home.
