Two weeks ago, Lee and I tried the winter camping thing (a first for me). We wanted to work on a few winter camping skills, including building an Ice Box Igloo. Unfortunately, we didn't work on preparation well enough, and we hit one of the coldest weekends of the year. So, though we had a lot of fun, we didn't build the igloo. We concluded that igloos are for smart people. We figured, given enough chances, we could get smart too.
So off we went on exactly the same trip - Cyprus Lake in Bruce Peninsuala National Park. This time around, though, it was warmer (-5°C) with very little wind. Furthermore, we left Guelph at 6 a.m., which meant we got to the park road by 9:00. In the past two weeks, a combination of snowmobiles, ATVs and 4x4s had driven the 5km road into the campground, so we did the same and unexpectedly cut our 1 hr 20 minute snowshoe in down to 20 minutes. This was starting really well!
The igloo building was our first order of business. As per instructions (and we had now both read the manual, watched the video and I even had extra instructions personally from Ed, the inventor of the Ice Box and star of the instructional video), we packed down a circle to use as the base for the igloo. Once that was set, we put the kit together and anchored the stake on which the pole would pivot.
The idea behind the Ice Box is that you build layers of the igloo by packing snow into the supplied form. You start with a ramp, and every time you reach the ramp again, you change the length of the pole (by snapping it into the hole labelled with the layer number). If done correctly, this will produce a catenary curve, and thus an igloo. Our first mistake, though, was not paying enough attention to the first level. Our first set of blocks should have been angled in more (there is a line on the form which needs to be perpendicular to the ground on the first layer - I don't think I did that right). *(see below)
This mistake resulted in a 1-2" gap between our first level of blocks and where we needed to put the second level. We had, however, gotten the hang of gently packing the snow to make solid blocks, and decided to carefully pack the blocks even though they didn't line up perfectly (we were so focused on this that for a while we were stacking blocks on top of each other instead of offsetting them, so there was another thing to correct when we noticed it).**
After the correction, our blocks lined up to the previous level perfectly, and we were making good progress. I did jostle the centre stake once, and it wasn't perfect for a block or two - that mistake carried over to subsequent layers, and our igloo had a weird bump on the one side for two or three layers.
Still, we were humming along, and our snow shelter started taking shape. After the fourth level - when I realized that I could no longer get out but would want to fairly soon - Lee dug a tunnel for our door. We had built on top of three feet of packed snow, so the top of our door was still 3" below the floor of our igloo.
We stopped humming at layer six. As per instructions, we took the front panel off the form, and Lee tried packing from the outside while I held the form. We didn't make this work, though, and I found we had better results if he gave me perfect snow and I made the blocks from the inside.
By level seven, this technique no longer worked, either, since my arms were too short (I was on my toes or on top of stacked snowshoes all through level six) so Lee and I traded jobs and he packed. We couldn't figure out how to reposition the form without breaking most of what we'd done for the last block of level seven, though***. I made the hole smaller by hand-packing stuff (without the form) for a bit, but got frustrated. After some discussions, we decided to cheat, and used both the panels of the form to cover the hole in our roof - and then shoveled a bunch of snow on top of this for insulation (and so you couldn't see our cheating from the outside).
By 4:30, we had ourselves an igloo! Though we made a number of mistakes (I'll know better next time), we got our snow shelter built with a bit of cheating. We sat inside our palace and felt very proud. Then we covered the floor with tarps and set out sleeping mats and various other gear. Between that and admiring our handiwork, we killed time until sunset.
When the sun goes down, it is okay to crawl into your sleeping bag without feeling like a wimp. So we did. We made dinner by cooking in the pit that defined our doorway, and dined in our sleeping bags by candlelight. The inside temperature of the igloo got to six degrees, and it felt toasty warm.
I forced myself out of our warm cocoon to to brush my teeth and prophylactically pee, and then snuggled into my sleeping bags (my winter sleeping bag inside my summer sleeping bag, with my fleece liner inside that - there was no way I wanted to be cold!). Lee skipped this step, but paid for it when he had to leave the nest at 1:30. Since he felt the need to complain about it, I complained that I was too hot. I would never have thought that I could be too hot sleeping in the snow! But I was warm all night, and I don't think the temperature in the igloo dipped below freezing while we were in it, even when the candles were out.
What goes around comes around - by 8 a.m. I had to leave the igloo again while Lee smugly snored away. Since I was up, I spent some time melting snow for water and was even nice enough to make a thermos of hot chocolate and make coffee before retreating to the igloo again. The winds had picked up, and a blizzard was howling around us while we lounged in our sleeping bags and drank coffee until 10. If I hadn't been outside, I wouldn't have believed how cold and windy it was - inside the shelter, it was warm, completely quiet (no flapping tent, and the sound of the branches outside was muffled too).
Eventually, though, we had to get up for real. We packed up and took our gear back to the jeep, and then went for a hike out to Georgian Bay to have a look at the ice that was so cool two weeks ago.
It was even cooler this weekend! Between the huge piles of slabs that the changing ice pressures had created and the massive ice formations on shore, I was a picture taking fool. It started clearing up, but the wind was very strong. Though we were dressed for it, we started to chill.
We found shelter in a sea cave that had turned to an icicle grotto. Cool, no? We thought so.
The ice fascinates me to no end. I fearlessly wandered out to a very large, circular, smooth patch of darker ice. It looked creepy - for some reason, it was almost all new ice, and unaffected by the pressure cracks that were all around it. I got maybe 20% across the circle before I realized it was a stupid idea - especially since I heard gurgling. Gingerly I scurried back to the safer ice where Lee (who refused to join me on this particular caper) was waiting.
We made our way back to the jeep via the Marr Lake trail, but crossed Cyprus Lake and visited igloo on the beach one last time. Lee had managed to remove the two panels that we used to cheat from the roof without damaging the snow that we had packed on top, so it was fully intact. We ate lunch in our palace, and then departed.
A very satisfying weekend. It took us a long time to build the igloo and we made some mistakes, but we did make our own shelter and sleep in it - and we felt very smug about this fact when the wind howled all around and we were toasty warm and tucked away. So fun. And we are smart people now (at least 75% smart - we made it to layer six of eight of the igloo without cheating!).
         
I showed this page and our pictures to "Igloo Ed" Huesers, who invented the Ice Box kit. Below are some notes on ways to correct our mistakes...
*
 Ed notes that it is important for the outside person (the shoveler) to tell the inside person (the form handler) how far to tip the form to make it square to the floor, and soon you will know what it looks like. He notes that some people actually put a little plumb bob on it to make it perfect. Good idea.
**
 Being gentle is crucial to getting the snow to set. It isn't really packing, it's patting, as far as I'm concerned. We'd used a bathroom scale to get a feel for 6-7lbs of pressure. Ed notes that sometimes this is too much pressure too, and you should get the feel of when the snow stops moving down. Hard to explain, but I know exactly what he's talking about. After about 7 or 8 blocks, I swore I could feel the snow lock into place.
***
 Ed points out that we packed the form all the way to the top, but since we were making a small igloo (8 feet diameter), we should have left 1-2" in the top of the form to avoid having the top come in too quickly. Makes perfect sense. He also says he carefully sands/breaks previous blocks if he needs the form to fit. He'll also cheat on pole length. We were all about cheating on pole length, though we limited ourselves here since we wanted the igloo to work.