Boys' Life/Volume 1/Number 1/How to Build an Igloo

HOW TO BUILD AN IGLOO

An "igloo" is a hut made of snow, which is much used by Arctic explorers in the great open snow plains, where no trees or stones are to be got. It is a good thing for Scouts to build in the winter. The simplest way to build an igloo, where the snow is not sufficiently frozen as to be cut into blocks, is this:

You start rolling a big snowball until it is as big as you can well lift. It is best to make it rather square-shaped than round—it gets more solid that way.

Then, when you have made a whole lot of these blocks, pile them together in a big heap about 6 ft. high, 10 ft. long, and about 8 ft. wide, and jam them well together, filling up all cracks and holes with more snow. Then, with a shovel or piece of board, smooth off the surface of the heap until it looks neat and shaped like a low beehive.

When the outside is neatly finished, get a lot of sticks all exactly the same length, about 2 ft. long, and stick them into the snow-heap and push them in till their ends are flush with the snow. You want a lot of them, until there is one every two or three feet all over the snow-heap.

Now you tunnel into the heap. First make a low-arched doorway, then dig out the whole of the inside of the heap, passing the dug-out snow out through the doorway.

Whenever you come across the end of one of your sticks on the inside, don't dig any more there, as the stick gives the thickness at which the wall should be kept.

When you have made one hut like this you can add more rooms to it by building more in the same way close up against it, so that you can cut doers leading from one into the next.

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"George!" exclaimed Jimmy to his brother of that name.

"Don't bother me," replied George; "I'm reading an absorbing article."

"What is it about?"

"Sponges."