How to Build an Igloo
A wonderfully illustrated guide to making snow shelters. How to build with snow, how to work with snow rather than against it, and what not to do. Amazingly informative, succinct and fun. This book is the kind of expert you dream of.
-- KK
How to Build an Igloo: And Other Snow Shelters
Norbert E. Yankielun
2007, 208 pages
$13
Available from Amazon
Here is an unrelated but excellent 10-minute film from the Canadian Film Board on How to Build an Igloo (via Kottke).
A surface entryway should have a header block, or lintel (shaded), bridging the top of the arch opening.
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One of the challenges faced by the beginner quinzee builder who excavates the interior of the snow mound is not to weaken the structure by breaking through to the outside of the mound or causing a thin spot in the wall. It is difficult while digging inside the quinzee to maintain a uniform wall thickness. To overcome this challenge, try this trick: After completing the snow mound, and before it begins to sinter, gather a few dozen foot-long (30 cm) thin, dead twigs, dried plant stalks, or stiff lengths of straw. Completely push them into the snow mound at various places all over the dome. They will act as depth gauges. During excavation of the interior, if the ends of the twigs or stalks become visible, you will know that enough snow has been removed from that section of the dome. Digging to the point where most of the ends of the twigs become visible inside ensures a uniform 1 foot (30 cm) wall thickness.
Placing twigs of approximately the same length into the snow mound will help to keep the dome of the quinzee a uniform thickness.
Mounding the snow on several backpacks and then removing them once the mound has sintered saves a lot of shoveling.
Favorite (15)
PW
The first illustration is completely wrong, especially since the caption reads: "A surface entryway should have a header block, or lintel (shaded), bridging the top of the arch opening."
The way the person is cutting the doorway means that the lintel will fall on the first person's head who dares to enter. The smaller illustration below gives the correct idea of how to make the cut with the lintel intact, but the illustration above that clearly is wrong.
Fail!
Marsha Keeffer
Wonder if you can add a skylight or perhaps a lanai?
Dave
Watch the 1922 documentary 'Nanook of the North' (available via Netflix) - Nanook quite handily adds a skylight to his igloo.
sgazzetti
I recall seeing an educational film about an Inuit building an igloo in which he used polished water-ice to make a window to admit light. Now that I reflect upon it, that grade 5 experience was probably single-handedly responsible for my lifelong interest in and affection for snow shelters and winter camping. I guess I need to buy this book. Thanks for reviewing it.
Mike
What are the size limitations to how big your igloo can get? I'm thinking of making one 9 feet in diameter. What problems will I come across? Any suggestions to pull this off.
Indy
For Max Size, I found an article http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic26-4-276.pdf that evaluated the height/diameter and max diameter of 35ft by 12ft high...