I decided to take advantage of last weekend's snowfall and this week's subfreezing temperatures by building an igloo. I figured the girls would enjoy playing in a "princess snow castle" and I could act like a kid again. I finally finished the igloo last night. Anna and I crawled through the little door I cut. We lit a small candle and told some stories. I asked her, "Did you ever think that your dad would make you an igloo?". She said, "Daddy, I never even thought of that! This is so cool!".
It's much harder than it looks. There are some amazing igloo building resources on the WWW. My favorite is a youtube video replay of a 1950's Canadian Film Board video of two Inuit Indians building a huge structure in about 2 hours. The video makes me feel a little nostalgic for elementary school social studies class and it has the same tone as the Troy McClure educational videos in the "Simpsons". It's full of politically incorrect language of another time.
I used a combination of snow blocks made from a block maker purchased on ebay and larger more custom blocks cut with a woodsaw from our 5 foot snow pile at the end of the driveway. (I didn't think to do this until after watching the Eskimo video and I successfully resisted the tempation to spend $50 on an actual snow saw). Anna and Julia were using this pile as a "snow slide" so it was packed as solid as a snow field. Anna helped me make the smaller snow blocks using the block maker and said it was like making a sand castle.
The whole experience gave me an idea for a children's book, "My Daddy's Not an Eskimo" about how a little kid recognizes that her parent does something less expertly than someone else but still appreciates them for trying.
It's much harder than it looks. There are some amazing igloo building resources on the WWW. My favorite is a youtube video replay of a 1950's Canadian Film Board video of two Inuit Indians building a huge structure in about 2 hours. The video makes me feel a little nostalgic for elementary school social studies class and it has the same tone as the Troy McClure educational videos in the "Simpsons". It's full of politically incorrect language of another time.
I used a combination of snow blocks made from a block maker purchased on ebay and larger more custom blocks cut with a woodsaw from our 5 foot snow pile at the end of the driveway. (I didn't think to do this until after watching the Eskimo video and I successfully resisted the tempation to spend $50 on an actual snow saw). Anna and Julia were using this pile as a "snow slide" so it was packed as solid as a snow field. Anna helped me make the smaller snow blocks using the block maker and said it was like making a sand castle.
The whole experience gave me an idea for a children's book, "My Daddy's Not an Eskimo" about how a little kid recognizes that her parent does something less expertly than someone else but still appreciates them for trying.
3 comments:
Nice igloo Rob. Bobby had some architectural critiques though.
Cool Rob! I love the detail about you wanting to spend 50$ on a tool to help you build it. I wonder where we get that from..... the joy of purchasing tools that we'll only use a few times.
If we didn't have so much dog poop in our back yard I may send Paul and the boys out to do the same thing.
David begged to make an igloo the entire time we were in Utah! We would love to come visit you during igloo-making season.
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