Greenwich woman heads to Arctic Circle

A Greenwich woman is headed to the Arctic Circle to help build a frozen hotel out of thousands of tons of ice from Sweden's Torne River.

Mary Gibbons is leaving Saturday for the Swedish village of Jukkasjarvi, where she will be a project manager for the Icehotel. Each winter, a new hotel is built from the ice, and it melts in the spring.

Gibbons joined the building crew in 2005 after watching a television program on similar accommodations built from ice and snow. She took a leave of absence from her job as a ceramic tile designer to do the work.

Gibbons has built frozen furniture for the hotel bar, using chain saws to sculpt the ice. She says it's very rewarding to see people sit in her chairs.