For 48 hours, from noon, Friday February 5th to noon Sunday February 7th, Neuhaus Design staff will be living in igloos built near the market at the Forks to introduce Winnipeg to the Magic Igloo Maker™ and to raise money for the Children’s Hospital Foundation. Our goal is to raise $4,800, or $100 for every hour we spend outside in the cold.
“We’ve had great response so far, for this new Winnipeg-based winter outdoor toy,” says Sherril Matthes, Magic Igloo Maker™. “Although we had to postpone our event before Christmas due to the lack of snow, we’re ready to get back out there again.”
For two days and nights, staff from Neuhaus Design in Winnipeg will brave the elements, living in the igloos to raise money for the Children’s Hospital Foundation. “We’re hoping people will be inspired by our efforts, visit the Foundation’s website and pledge their support,” says Callum Beattie, Neuhaus Design. “In turn, we hope to be inspired by the response.”
At noon Friday, the Igloo construction will begin using Magic Igloo Makers™. Throughout the weekend the group will live in the igloos, taking only a 1/2 hour indoor break every four hours. These winter campers, some experienced, some not, will have an outdoor fire going and electricity in the igloos. People are welcome to stop by at the Forks Market anytime to say hello and make a pledge in person, but they can also go to the Children’s Hospital Foundation website and make a pledge at www.goodbear.mb.ca.
Dr. Goodbear himself will be stopping by on Friday at 2:00 pm and may be checking in with the campers throughout the weekend.
Throughout the 48 hours, the Neuhaus staff will be blogging about their progress via Facebook and neuhausdesign.ca/blog.
Work sometimes gets in the way of having fun, so we worked on three different days to build our igloo. We started with about a 12 foot inside diameter circle (but not a very good circle). We had only one set of Magic Igloo Makers. Our first day of building was one week ago, before the good snowfall. We were scraping the grass to find enough snow, and we actually talked about maybe only building a block wall due to a lack of snow. The big snow day solved that part of the problem and we got about five rings built on the igloo that day. As the temperature rose we had a lot of melt happening from the branches above our igloo, and then later that day we actually had a bit of rain. The next morning the igloo had settled about a foot from its height the day before, but the frozen walls were now as solid as a hockey rink!
As the new snow dried out I spent a bit of time each of the next few days making some snow bricks and letting them stiffen up on the side of our driveway. Yesterday after school we made the big push to finish the top. I was a bit worried as we reached the point where the blocks were tilting in that one or two might fall before the next stabilizing block was placed (as my circle had not started quite round, and as the melting had bowed in one of the walls, we had to work to make the upper rows circular again by pushing some blocks further out than their proper position on the block below). In order to hold blocks in place I made a 'slurpee' of water and snow and used a soup ladle to scoop some of this mixture, like mortar, on to the lower block before placing a block on top. It worked quite well for the tricky ones. As we reached the top of the curve we also used some if this slush to fill the inside gaps between blocks so that the light snow we threw on to fill the outside gaps would not just sift through the wall and fall inside.
Due to the bowing of the one area our top reached a slit rather than a nice circle, so portions of three blocks were needed to make the final closure. In all I probably spent about 12 hours working on the igloo with my wife and three little helpers contributing varying amounts of time for at least a twenty hour total. This weekend we will build an entrance tunnel to keep the wind down. I think we have enough room for about fifteen people to sit in it quite easily.
In one of our next igloos we will try to build the walls a bit taller before allowing them to bow in, and then we can have a cold sink below a sitting/sleeping area, and do the night in it. One other trick I saw on a YouTube video was an Inuit guy using a string on a stick to mark out the radius from the center of his circle, and to also keep the inward tilt happening the same all around.
I had always wanted to build an igloo, but southern Manitoba snow doesn't blow in hard like northern snow, so I had never been able to do it until your Igloo Maker came along, and a quinsy just isn't the same. Thanks for helping take one item out of my bucket list!
- Terence