Aurora Ice Museum
Located at Chena Hot Springs Resort, the Aurora Ice Museum showcases life-sized ice sculptures, an ice bar, and offers guided tours, providing an immersive experience into ice art and the Northern Lights.
Planning your visit
The Aurora Ice Museum at Chena Hot Springs is the only year-round ice structure of its kind in the world. Built from around 1,000 tonnes of ice and snow, it is kept at roughly minus six degrees Celsius by a chiller system powered — appropriately — by the resort's own geothermal energy, drawn from the same hot springs that give the place its name.
Inside are life-sized ice sculptures by champion carvers, including a jousting knight, polar bears, chandeliers and four ice bedrooms. The bar serves appletinis in glasses carved from ice, which visitors keep or shatter.
Parkas are provided. The contrast with the hot springs outside — soaking in 40-degree mineral water under the aurora, having just walked out of a subzero building — is the appeal of Chena generally.
It sits about 90 kilometres from Fairbanks, and the resort is one of Alaska's more reliable aurora viewing locations in winter.
Bookable options include tickets with guided tours. Current availability is shown below.
Before you book
Where is Aurora Ice Museum?
Aurora Ice Museum is in Fairbanks, United States.
Do I need to book Aurora Ice Museum in advance?
Guided tours run to a fixed schedule and small group sizes, so they are usually booked ahead.
