Our very first ICEBOX igloo

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PineMartyn
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Our very first ICEBOX igloo

Post by PineMartyn » Sun Dec 26, 2010 3:31 pm

My wife and I built our very first igloo (the 9-foot version) a few days ago and it worked like a charm, even though the snow we had to work with was old, dry, granular and sugary. The first link is to a photo montage of our building of it. The second link is to a product review my wife wrote for WinterTrekking.com. We couldn't be happier with the result.

http://www.youtube.com/user/PineMartyn# ... ZEi-KF8tq4

http://wintertrekking.com/index.php?topic=1204.0
No one has ever been heard to say on a deathbed, "I wish I'd put in more time at the office".
http://www.youtube.com/user/PineMartyn
http://gonecanoeing.blogspot.com/

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Igloo Ed
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Re: Our very first ICEBOX igloo

Post by Igloo Ed » Fri Jan 14, 2011 9:13 am

That's a great video, Martin. Makes me wish I knew how to do it also but haven't tried yet.
I'm looking forward to seeing what trips you do with the great snow you have this season.
I did a trip on The Bud Train out of Sudbury with the Deep Freeze boys. It was a lot the same as the glacial rocks here in some places but the snow was tricky. I kept on stepping on bushes that I thought were rocks and sinking in very deep. I kept stepping on them hoping I'd find a rock... I know, seems strange... but I never found my rock. Strange.
The exposed rocks and cliff reminded me of The Boundary Waters in MN and were beautiful.
The Canadian Shield is amazing.

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PineMartyn
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Re: Our very first ICEBOX igloo

Post by PineMartyn » Fri Jan 14, 2011 9:43 am

My wife and I are pleased you enjoyed the video. We hoped it would communicate our sense of enjoyment as we built it along with the sense of satisfaction that accompanies making one's own sound, roomy and aesthetically pleasing winter shelter. And sleeping in it for a couple of nights proved to us how much better and comfortable an igloo is than a quinzhee, which we'd camped in before. Whenever I've been in quinzhee's, I have slept with one eye open...a little fearful of a collapse or heavy sagging since it's hard to hollow them out such that the walls are the necessary angle and thickness for the weight of snow overhead.

As for how to make your own videos (if you're interested), I'd be happy to show you how. It's so much easier than one thinks, since the software does most of the work and it's all free. All you need is a digital camera that takes either still photos, video (or both) and a laptop or pc. I'm a bit of a techno-peasant, so if I can do it, anyone can.

Regarding the snow up here. For some reason, the part of Ontario we are in has received very little snow. We got one decent dump in early December, but then we got a huge thaw which melted almost all the snow (our well-consolidated igloo is still standing...though a bit shorter now). We have since had one other respectable dump of snow, but scarcely a foot deep. We have our fingers crossed for another big dump of snow soon so we can go out and complete a second igloo. We can't wait to build one in the woods and camp out in it.

-Martin
Last edited by PineMartyn on Sun Feb 06, 2011 6:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
No one has ever been heard to say on a deathbed, "I wish I'd put in more time at the office".
http://www.youtube.com/user/PineMartyn
http://gonecanoeing.blogspot.com/

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PineMartyn
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Re: Our very first ICEBOX igloo

Post by PineMartyn » Sun Feb 06, 2011 6:27 am

At last we've got plenty of snow, so we've built 3 more igloos; 8-footers this time. Our very first build (the 9-footer) took us 12 hours. Our 2nd took half the time and the third one we took 5 and a half hours. The very last one took only 4 hours (including breaks) but the snow was wet for this last one. Each build is getting easier and faster.

The building tips on this forum are invaluable, especially after you have tried building one or two. It's hard to appreciate the wisdom of some of the form-handling and shoveling techniques until after you've built one or two igloos.

Here are some photos of our recent builds.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/35874807@N ... 862669247/

-Martin
No one has ever been heard to say on a deathbed, "I wish I'd put in more time at the office".
http://www.youtube.com/user/PineMartyn
http://gonecanoeing.blogspot.com/

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