Snow lodge project being built in Manitoba aims to be 'Taj Mahal of the north'

Organizers in Flin Flon and lake winnipeg ar edifice what they trust could suit a cool new tradition — an event space built from northern ice and snow.

Construction is underway for what planners are calling a “snow lodge" using freshly-fallen snow and blocks of ice from a nearby pond, along with metal forms and wooden platforms to help shape it.

The project is being built inside a campground within Flin Flon, currently closed for the season. The Rotary Wheel, an all-season indoor meeting and event space, is located not far from the lodge site.

Ice blocks have been pulled from a nearby pond, cut up with a chainsaw into individual bricks, then pulled up by volunteers with hooks and moved into place with heavy equipment. 

The idea of a building made out of snow and ice is nothing new, as Inuit in some parts of the Canadian Arctic have been making homes from frozen materials for centuries.

The plan in Flin Flon, however, is different in scope. The closest comparable is a project in the remote Swedish town of Jukkasjärvi, where for the past four decades, a fully-outfitted hotel is built each winter out of ice from a nearby river. 

Winnipeg-based architect Peter Hargraves, one of the project’s lead planners, has worked on that hotel before, along with other notable projects. Hargraves was one of the drivers behind the annual warming hut design contest on the Red River.

The idea for a similar project up north started in 2023, with a chance encounter between Hargraves and a Flin Flonner at True North Square in Winnipeg. Hargraves and his firm Sputnik Architecture were hosting an exhibit of ice sculptures, made of ice harvested from the Red River.

“This gentleman stopped and was asking us what we were doing, then he said, ‘You’ve got to talk to this woman named Crystal Kolt in Flin Flon,’” Hargraves recalled.

The long-time leader of Flin Flon’s arts council, conductor of the community choir and organizer of dozens of events, Kolt is a person who makes things happen.

Now working with the City of Flin Flon, Kolt got to work chasing down grants, sponsors, contractors and volunteers to help build the lodge. Companies experienced in winter construction and building ice roads are also on board for the build.

“We are super excited and we think the community is really excited about it,” she said.

The project is planned to open in late January and will include a main hall area, made almost entirely out of ice and snow. Kolt described it as a “very large, elegant, sophisticated quonset.”

Snowshoe and skiing trails, lit up by night, will be located nearby, along with a skating rink on the same pond the ice is being pulled from.

“I think it’ll be the Taj Mahal of the north here, absolutely. It’s going to be beautiful,” said Dave Koop, one of the project’s builders and main ice harvester.

Planners hope to host concerts, art exhibits, dinners and other events out of the lodge, working with local businesspeople and artists to make that happen.

“We have plans underway. We’re collaborating with local organizations like snowshoe clubs, the skiing club, we have lots of people who want to come do cultural teachings,” said Ainslie McIntosh-Stallard, a local restaurant owner who is the event planner for the project.

The cold is both good and bad for construction. On the good side, colder weather means more snow, more ice and shorter time for material to freeze together. On the bad side, it means harder conditions to work in. No matter the temperature outside, planners say it will be around –2 Celsius inside once it’s built.

“It’s been cold enough now to form lots of ice. The ice blocks are going to be over 12 inches thick, which is the perfect size for what they want to do,” said Koop.

“It gets cold here and when it gets cold, you can do things like this that you can't do in other places in the world,” said Hargraves.

If the project works this winter, architects and community planners hope the lodge could expand to a full-blown hotel like the one in Sweden, along with other winter attractions in other areas.

“The idea is to populate the whole of western and northern Manitoba with these unbelievable winter engagement projects where tourism can prosper and thrive. I'm a hard believer that it'll outstrip summer if we do it right,” said Hargraves.

“This is going to be a bit of a proof of concept piece here for us, to learn how to make this and what we can do with this space,” said Kolt.

Snow lodge being built in Flin Flon to host events

Reporter

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