Iglu Building in England

[BushcraftCambsUk]

My neibourgh Mark and I decided to make a play iglu for our daughters. Well one thing led to another and soon enough my enginious way of collecting snow for the kids iglu became a way of making snow blocks. And with 6 inch of snow on the ground we had more than enough to make the blocks we needed.
Here are some pics hope you like our 2 man iglue 3 at an uncomfertable push.


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[BushcraftCambsUk]

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[BushcraftCambsUk]

Now this is our attempt at an Iglu

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[ian c]

well looks like you had fun, an i like the way you used a empty box to make the blocks, did you stay in it?

[BushcraftCambsUk]

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[BushcraftCambsUk]

No we didnt stay in it because it was outside our flat lmao so after building it we were about ready for a shower and some food lmao never having made an Iglu before it took HOURS! lol

[rossbird]

Great pics Mike. I suspect you adults had as much fun as the children.:D

[BushcraftCambsUk]

hahahaha you suspect right Ross :D we had a great crack.

[CanadianMike]

Wow! You didn't mention you made it from snow, here I was expecting to see a pile of rocks (knowing you guys get surprised if you see snow over there......... at least Ben does). Good job!

[Adam Savage]

Great fun had I see. Nice job you've done there.

It's a shame we don't get more snow. With a good foot or so you can build a good sized iglo with full thickness walls, it's just you need a nice big area to gather the snow from. Packing it into bricks uses a surprising amount. That's why Eskimo and Inuit peoples rarely made iglos from snow. They used to build a frame and cover it in seal skins :)

[Adam Savage]

Edit. By good sized I mean about 3m+ diameter, so more XL than good sized lol.

[CanadianMike]

Igloo is more a temperary shelter cut from dense packed snow. Rather like pitching a yurt for a few days or weeks while out on the hunt. Pretty cool to watch them work to build one though, the precision of the cuts and how they fill the gaps.

[Adam Savage]

But the advantage of an igloo (sorry for earlier spelling mistakes, of "iglo" :)), is you don't have to take it down when you leave :p

[CanadianMike]

Is ok, thought it was the Brit way of spelling it. Lol, iglu, iglo, igloo........ tomato, tomatoe. :)

But ya, you are right, leave it as it is and move one. Might save someone else's life actually. Besides, it's camoflaged!

[BushcraftCambsUk]

Whatever the case i said "English" igloo which means filling hand held recycle bins with powdery snow and compressing it by standing on it until you have a propper block that you can chissle and sculpt into shape. That is how we did it and let me tell you there are about 40 to 50 bricks in that thing and it is about a foot thick and it held warmth like nobodys business it was incredible! Also allowed us to sit down and stretch out but if we wanted to sleep in it we would have had to lay with our legs bent.
Still a good size and i dont think i have ever seen someone in England build an Igloo before.

[Adam Savage]

Oh I wasn't underestimating your igloo mate, sorry if it sounded like that. That's a great method for making the block, and a foot thick is darn good going with the relatively small amount of snow we've had.

Tried making an igloo with my father about 14-16 years ago, but we used all of the snow in the garden and it still only came to half height lol.

I take my hat of to you sir. T^

[CanadianMike]

Agreed, sounds like a monstrous effort in making it with what you had around you. Further proof as well, how awesome packed snow is as an insulator!

[BushcraftCambsUk]

Yea you know and i never for a sec thought you were critasising me Saint i was just trying to explain how it was done and that :D

[Adam Savage]

Cool. Hopefully we'll get some more snow at some point (might have to wait another year or two though lol), you could judge an igloo building comp :D

[Martin]

Agreed, sounds like a monstrous effort in making it with what you had around you. Further proof as well, how awesome packed snow is as an insulator!

Yeah, it's almost as good an insulator as my bedroom. ;)

Martin

[Ashley Cawley]

Whey! Impressive :) ... I bet the kids had great fun! (and the big kids too!) :o

Wish we had more snow down here in Cornwall now - I've not seen a flake so far :) ... might be off to Dartmoor next week so might see some then hopefully.

[BigAl_naAlba]

Nice job on the igloo. With four inches of snow forecast for the weekend you might be able to solve the UK housing shortage! :D

[BushcraftCambsUk]

lmao! i would get done for building regs and cutting through all that red tape just turns me off to the idea. lol