When a cold front blew in over Lake Ontario, photographer John Kucko caught wind of the phenomenon and rushed to shoot images of a remarkably frozen home.

Located in Webster, New York, the house is entirely trapped inside ice, a combination of sheets and icicles wrapping the residence on all sides. Outdoor furniture and landscaping elements between the lake and the house were likewise wrapped in frozen water.

An unusual combination of waves, wind and freezing weather contributed to the mix, as well as the home’s proximity to the lake. Winds over 80 mile per hour pushed water the short twenty feet to the residence. You can see more images and videos on the photographers Facebook page.

Years ago, artists in Detroit did something similar but intentional with an abandoned home, showering it with water and letting it ice over for effect.

Not just cold comfort, these portable shacks designed to be towed out onto frozen lakes come in a variety of forms, from the practical and resourceful to the funny and artistic.  These ice fishing hut designs demonstrate how surprisingly warm and cozy the simplest of shelters can be – and prove that people who live in the world’s coldest climates (happily spending their spare time engaging in recreational outdoor activities in subzero temps) are way hardier than the rest of us.

Fishing Hut & Hot Tub Combo

A group of local anglers in Calgary came up with a pretty brilliant way to stay warm while out on the ice: a towable hot tub, which they pull out onto frozen lakes alongside their fishing hut. It takes a couple hours to heat up, but the waiting time has got to be worthwhile once you get in. “We weren’t catching any fish, so we thought we’d do something else,” says the tub’s creator, Scott Chesterman.

Ice Fishing Hut with Frozen Walls

Rather than hauling a pre-made hut out onto the water, you could work with what’s already there. This mobile fisherman’s hut design by Norwegian architecture studio Gartnerfuglen is made of a wooden frame and wire mesh, used as a form for ice. Once the walls freeze into place, the inside is insulated. In the summertime, it can be used as a garden shed, with the wire supporting climbing plants.

The Art Shanty Project: 8 Creative Hut Designs

Is this the polar opposite of Burning Man? Over 1,000 artists have designed and built creative ice shanties for the annual ‘Art Shanty Project’ over the last decade, covering the frozen surface of a Minnesota lake like an iced-over version of the popular desert festival. The creations include wooden stick-framed shacks, geodesic domes, tipis, sculptural structures and mobile shanties of all kinds, put on display for thousands of tourists to see for an event that’s uniquely Minnesotan.

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Angling For Warmth In Winter 21 Ice Fishing Hut Designs

The new Freezeway pilot project now live in Edmonton aims to draw residents out of hibernation, encouraging them to skate along an iced trail system slated to double as a seven-mile commuting corridor.

What started as a landscape architecture student’s conceptual project has already become a 1,300-foot ice pathway in winter that also serves as a bike route during the summer.

The vision is well-adapted to the conditions of the city, which faces below-freezing temperatures for up to five months out of the year, and has been nicknamed Deadmonton for its lack of wintertime outdoor activity.

The opening of the first stretch of Freezeway has been accompanied by a disco-style light show of rainbow colors projected onto the frozen path.

From the designer: “This project is not meant to be a tax payer’s burden. The Freezeway is meant upgrade city infrastructure for a multitude of uses, potentially doing wonders for the redeveloping City’s core, our international reputation, as well as attract investment into the City. The proposed route exists entirely on existing City infrastructure; the land is already secured. The numerous character areas along the route could be developed in phases, lending themselves well to private funding/sponsorship, like Calgary’s GlobalFest, or Vancouver’s Festival of Light fireworks shows, funded by donations of over 1 million dollars annually.”

Proposed by a landscape architect from Edmonton, Alberta, this 7-mile urban project may not be as far fetched as it first sounds – in many regards it is simply a linear extension of an ice skating rink or more pragmatic variant of for-fun skateways found in Holland and Russia.

For the many cities in the United States, Canada, Northern Europe and elsewhere that are only warm (and thawed) enough for comfortable biking half of the year, designs like The Freezeway by Matt Gibbs could provide a means to modify extant bike pathways to get exercise, have fun and commute to work during colder months. The process is not as simple as pouring ice on existing paths – issues of grade, embankments and connections would need to be addressed – but the concept is gaining momentum and these problems all have solutions.

The idea has local appeal for places like its architect’s hometown, which is ice cold for much of the year and dark to boot, providing an excuse to get outdoors as well as a way to move about the city. It also has potential international appeal as a tourist attraction and urban icon akin to the High Line in New York, Garden Bridge coming to London, Sea Wall in Vancouver and other one-of-a-kind landscape projects around the world.

More details from the designer: “By shovelling a mapped out route, the space between snow banks could be flooded, perhaps by a fire hydrant at first (though it’s not ideal), creating a web of trails to explore on skates, requiring minimal expenditure …. This space could eventually be animated by lights and music. If popular, it could incrementally expanded every year.”

More on the advantages for and beyond commuting: “This project is not meant to be a tax payer’s burden. The Freezeway is meant upgrade city infrastructure for a multitude of uses, potentially doing wonders for the redeveloping City’s core, our international reputation, as well as attract investment into the City. The proposed route exists entirely on existing City infrastructure; the land is already secured. The numerous character areas along the route could be developed in phases, lending themselves well to private funding/sponsorship, like Calgary’s GlobalFest, or Vancouver’s Festival of Light fireworks shows, funded by donations of over 1 million dollars annually. The design team is currently exploring numbers.”

Over the past decade, over 1,000 artists and 60,000 visitors have taken part in this incredible seasonal arts event, coming together to create an annual temporary community-on-ice in one of the nation’s coldest states.

Known as the “Land of 10,000 Lakes” but also as a center for the arts, Minnesota seems the perfect place for the Art Shanty Projects – a temporary autonomous zone where two disparate concepts to come together: the tradition of ice shacks built for fishing and the idea of public, interactive, community-built art on those same iced surfaces.

Comparisons have been made to Burning Man, but those sell short the unique local nature of this undertaking. One thing they do share, however, is a harsh (if opposite) environmental context that makes serious demands on buildings and shapes their form and function. The resulting structures are a mixture of wooden stick-framed shacks, metal geodesic domes, triangular tipis and other proven engineering approaches mixed with creative touches and unusual applications.

In years past, first on Medicine Lake and later White Bear Lake, the spaces these shape have featured a little bit of everything, from interactive games and dance floors to indoor and outdoor theatrical and musical performances. Sometimes a wild art car or two can be spotted patrolling the streets of the the shanty village as well and strange sculptures have been known to crop up in between buildings as well. While some things are scheduled, visitors learn to expect the unexpected.

This winter, the Art Shanty Projects is taking a break from the On-Ice Program to celebrate 10 years of success and complete a pivotal transition into an official non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. However, the organization is hosting a fundraising retrospective featuring some of the best shanties of years past as well as a custom-brewed beer specifically created for the event, taking place on February 28th at the Fulton Brewery in Minneapolis (more details can be found on ArtShantyProjects.org). Anyone wishing to donate to next year’s program can also do so online at Give.MN. This year, ASP is also a finalist for an Art Place America grant and is competing for a Black Rock Arts Foundation grant.

More about ASP: “Art Shanty Projects is an artist driven temporary community exploring the ways in which relatively unregulated public spaces can be used as new and challenging artistic environments to expand notions of what art can be. Our organization values artists, art in all communities, and the importance of interaction between the two. Through an array of artists receiving fair wages for their work, we broaden perceptions of art while maintaining respect for the environment and communities in which we work.” Note: the writer of this article serves as on the Board of Directors for the Art Shanty Projects, an unpaid position.