Isaac Phillips (right) and sons Zachary and Samuel (l-r) enjoy the completed igloo at their rural Calmar home. The process involved plenty of planning and preparation and the team of igloo builders is already taking notes on how to make the design better for next winter. (Zakary Kriener photo)
IIgloo building 101 with the Phillips family
Zakary Kriener
News Writer
zkriener@fayettepublishing.com
Sure, building a snowman can be a fun winter activity for some people – but for the Phillips family of rural Calmar was looking for something new. This winter, Isaac and sons Zachary, age 10, and Samuel, age 6, embarked on a new fun and educational project as they built an igloo in their own backyard.
“The idea came up last year when I had bought a new jungle gym for the kids and was trying to think of how we could use it in the winter as well,” explained Phillips, referring to the dome-shaped structure. “There are only so many winter activities that you can do and I wanted to come up with something different than building a snowman or a sledding hill. Because of the shape of the jungle gym, I saw the perfect opportunity to try to build an igloo.”
Phillips began to research the process of building an igloo, but since authentic igloos are built differently, there was not much information available to him.
“Traditional igloos are freestanding and built with bricks of snow,” explained the father of two. “I cheated a little bit, so I came up with most of the design plan on my own.”
The project began in Nov. 2019 when Isaac started the preparation process in order to be ready for the first snowfall.