Fairbanks Ice Museum

The Fairbanks Ice Museum showcases life-sized ice sculptures and offers the ‘Crown of Light’ Aurora film, providing an immersive experience into ice art and the Northern Lights.

Planning your visit

The Fairbanks Ice Museum keeps ice sculpture on display year-round in a place where outdoor ice art is only possible for part of it. Housed in the former Lacey Street Theatre downtown, it maintains a large refrigerated gallery — held at around minus six degrees, with parkas provided — containing life-size sculptures carved by artists from the World Ice Art Championships, which Fairbanks hosts each March using unusually clear local pond ice.

Carving demonstrations show the tools and technique, and there is an ice slide.

The other half of the offering is the "Crown of Light" film on the aurora, shot locally over several seasons. Fairbanks sits under the auroral oval and is among the best places on earth to see the northern lights, but visibility depends on clear skies and solar activity, and the film is a reliable substitute when the sky is not cooperating.

Bookable options often combine the museum with Chena Hot Springs, an hour outside town, which has its own year-round Aurora Ice Museum and is a standard Fairbanks day trip. Current availability is shown below.