How Igloos Work

hasn't been sick all week. It'll probably just be a couple of days ago. Clear, if you have a robust um immune system for a man of your age, remember when you were actually sick for weeks and weeks like in year one? Yeah, and I think like eighteen podcasts were screwed up because I was just I could not get better. I thought, you are those are the unhealthy day. So you lead a much healthier lifestyle, much much healthier. You're not. We don't need to check you into the

sanitarium like we had to back in the day. I'm okay now I'm not. I've gotten over my consumption. Hopefully you will very soon. I have all faith that you will. Right, So, Chuck, while we're waiting for you to recuperate, I have I want to talk to you about technology, specifically some of

the oldest technology known demand clothes. Clothing is technology. Yeah, so, I think, Chuck, probably more than anything else, the thing that defines humanity is our desire and our ceaseless striving to become more than more than human, to take ourselves out of the rat race of evolution, the crapshoot of genetics, and to basically take hold of our biological destiny. Right. Yeah. We sort of did that with clothing many many, many

years ago. Yeah, so that's that's what we do. We use technology to do that, and clothing was one of the earliest ones. Because we are a subtropical species humans are We're not supposed to live in really cold places, right, but we do. We've managed to migrate from you know, somewhere near the equator where we can run around without clothes too. Yeah, because we're what they call the sexy epochs um to some colder climbs. Thanks to close along the way, we um figured out that we could use

hammers and or use stones for hammers and other tools. Um, and we figured out that we could build our our own shelters make things warm on the inside. Right, So eventually over the years we figured out enclosed heating systems. And then now thanks to all this, we have swedes, right, involvos. Involvos thanks to the swedes. So the technology evolvos are a direct result of the technology of clothes in a

weird way. You're exactly right. But somewhere along the line there was a branch of that linear development of thought and talent of technology all the way to enclosed shelters that house swedes, where somebody figured out that you can make it enclosed shelter out of blocks of hard packed snow. And we know those today as ig loose. Yes, And do you know what the Inuit called the igloos? Your question?

That's a good that's a great That was a good question though, because, yeah, it's an Inuit word for what believe it means snow house. So the Inuits are just among the most pragmatic speakers on the planet, very cut and dry. Yeah, they call their snow houses igloos, right, that just makes outter sense. Yeah, we're talking about the Canadian tundra, Josh, and they, uh, you know, tps and castles and other things that were being built were all

well and good. If you're in in Europe, or if you are in a warmer climate, let's say, like the Florida Panhandle, you don't have to take through of ice to quarry stone exactly. But if you're in the Canadian tundra, those aren't really good options. So, uh, snow, hard packed snow, but aim the masonry, if you will. For the Inuits, let's go ahead and get to this Eskimo thing. Yeah, yeah, um. Eskimo and Inuit are one and the same. There are

two different terms for the same group of people. These people who um inhabit areas spanning from Siberia to Alaska, Canada, Greenland um thirty five hundred mile range, right, which makes them the most widely spread Aboriginal group on the planet. Yeah. An Aboriginal, for those of you don't know, doesn't just refer to the Aborigines in Australia. It's any um any any any indigenous indigenous the first people in that region, yes, or would be Aboriginal, Yes, that was the ones who

get pushed around by the Europeans aboriginal um. And if you want to insult in Inuit, you just go ahead and call them an eskimo. Yeah, apparently it's a derogatory term because it was a term that the white man gave. It was another tribe, was it, Yeah, but it was an outside group. I was just figure it's a white man. Yeah, so it was another group named them eskimos, which um, it was thought to mean eaters of raw meat or

raw blubbers what I've heard as well, blubber. But then they later thought that eschi moment to netch snowshoes, to build snowshoes, and linguists can't prove it, although that's kind of what they think. But in the glory that is language, things can go from their original meaning to a popular meaning, and it's old meaning is meaningless. It's only what people think or use right, right, which is how l o

l is a word, that's right. So we're going to refer them, refer to them as Inuit, because that's the that's the way to do it. We don't want to alienate anybody, no, especially the Inuit, because they are tough people and they have survived for many, many, many years in conditions that don't seem to be survivable, especially way back in the day. But they made it through and

they're thriving actually too. We'll get to that in a second. Yeah, I was surprised to see that, but um, chuck a couple of other facts about these uh the Inuit, which means the people, right, So they call their snowhouses they lose, they call themselves the people. It's just it's very spare. I could have been a get anyone, I think. I think so too. Keep things simple, fall down, goat, Yeah, so they don't. They they have never really established a

formal system of government. It's the family is generally the the center of the community. Yeah. Um, the males are the figure heads. Yeah. No, class system is pretty cool. Um. And basically, if you're a boy, you're a hunter. If you're a girl, you marry a hunter and hopefully produce more boy hunters because the everyone's equally responsible for coming up with food and I imagine every family, um is That's what that means. Every family is equally responsible for

contributing to the food in the community. Yeah. Yeah, so the more boy hunters the better. So, um, fascinating group, and they have never lived in it loses permanent shelters. Huh. Well, yeah, And it's important that you mentioned hunting because clearly, if you are living on the Arctic tundra, there's one thing that you're probably not gonna have, and that is a vegetable garden. So they are very carnivorous as a as

a people. They do a lot of hunting. They did a lot of hunting of seals, which is probably they were called blobberry working bloober eaters. And where there are seals, is gonna be a lot of ice sea ice, Yeah, which leads to another peculiar trait of the Inuit. Peculiar meaning unique. Um kayak angst. Remember we talked about that on the webcast like a long time ago, remember that, And everything was cut off in the middle of it,

and like it was get Kawasaki day. Oh yeah, And I wrote a blog post on thing like as I was saying before I was cut off, And kayak angst is this, um, it's a it's a condition specific only to the Inuit, where an Inuit males too, where you become afraid of going out to hunt seals in a kayak usually following an episode where you've been up for several days. The sun very rarely sets because at summertime, which is the only time you're when when you can hunt seal really um, so you have a loss of

sense of time. You're completely without any landmark or reference point. It's all just horizon and sea ice. So you're without any no bearings, no sense of time, and you doze off and wake up, and you have no idea how long you've been asleep, how far you've drifted, and you may be out there drifting for the rest of your life. And you finally do find land again, you make your way back to your community, and you become terrified at the thought of getting back in a kayaking kayak angst Yeah,

specific only to the Innuit. I don't remember that at all. That's so weird. Well you should read my blog post. I usually have an inkling, but that that one doesn't ring true for me. So, uh, the Inuit did not live in Iglas Josh as he said, that is not true. People might think that um Innuit tribes just had it loose all over the place and that was their house.

They were really hunting shelters. Yeah, it's like a hunting camp like um, Robin Williams, uh, fishing camping, insomnia, yeah, except nutty because of no sleep and two yeah, well al Pacino was yeah, that's right. That was Christopher Nolan. You know, yeah, he's just amazing. Yeah, although you had inception problems, right, it was really just Ellen Page get her out of the movie. You're okay. It wasn't even

her necessarily, although I'm not a big fan of hers. Um, I think she's a she's a good actress and everything, but you know, I'll never figure it for Juno. But um, it was more her character. Like clearly character was put in afterward because the producers were like, or the studio execs are like, wait, what is going on? So they wrote in Ellen Page's character to explain everything to everybody at each step so that you can keep up with

this really dense movie. You love getting me wound up at that inception around John So all right, where were we the innuits? They were hunting camps, like we said, and uh, they're still around today and they're booming. Um not igloos. Actually they're they're not quite as common. But they did a study who was just a human rights program in Canada. In Canada, Department of Canadian Heritage said that there could be as many as sixty eight thousand,

four hundred Inuit in Canada and only in Change. So um, yeah, they're they're booming as a people. Pretty cool. So they're thriving. Igloos. Are were never um, permanent shelter or structures for them, and um they had kayak angst One other thing too, Eskimo kisses. Yeah, what's the deal there? So you know it's like rubbing the tip of your nose. Yeah, it's cute, it is. It's not entirely accurate though, I'm sure, but

they did kiss with their noses. Yeah, but it was, Um, you would put your notes, your nostrils to the face, usually around like the cheeks, right below the eyes. Um. The you would put your nose to a loved one's face like that and inhale deeply. And that was that's the real Eskimo kiss for are Inuit kiss? Interesting, isn't it? Yeah they had it wrong though, you know how it right? The French Yeah, they figured it out and everyone was like, oh, yeah, this is the way to kiss. Forget that no stuff,

all right, So let's talk about igloos. For a second, they're built out of blocks of ice. They are not built out of the kind of snow that you probably have in your front yard in Ohio in the wintertime. It depends on how out what it was. Yeah, although my cousin in law, Alex Schreiber, Ohio State University student, built an igloo last winter. He and his buddies. Check this thing out, dude, nice, Wow, I should post this. I'm gonna get to post this. It's like seven ft

tall at least. It's huge, and it's it's like really well constructed. He's sitting on top of it and it's not caving in. If I built an igloo that, you know, it wouldn't last very long. Pretty cool though. That is a backyard in Ohio too. Yeah. It's great day, leafless trees everywhere. Yeah. Yeah, he and his buddies, you know, clearly had enough boredom in time to build this. Alex Schreiber, huh yeah awesome. Is he listening right now? I hope so yeah he listens. And I told I get my

heads up. Yeah, we have to post that. He's gonna right back and say, don't mention the iglu don't they always yeah, so chuck. Even though like um say, hunting expedition now or even a single hunter went out and built an igloo. Um that that it wasn't just the single igloo every single time. Sometimes they lived in them

for longer periods. Sometimes more people lived in a group, and they would actually um create compounds out of igloos by you know, melding them together, creating walkways, breeze waste. And there were some that um basically igloo cities that came about where you I think they would have like halls for banquets and beasts and like balls and stuff like like Inuit balls held in um uh, well, an igloo, a big large igloo. Pretty cool. Though I didn't know this.

I had no idea. I always pictured just the single and I also thought they lived in them. So this was this one. I was controlled like the totem poles. And we should probably also while we're just like busting things left and right. Um Chili, Willie, helpful little penguin from the He was so cute. I went and watched when to refresh my memory. Willy, he was very cute. He wasn't I I thought he would be mischievous or I remembered him being mischievous, like Woody Woodpecker, who was

a jerk. Um. No, Chili Willie was a very helpful, cute, sweet little baby penguin. Um. And his little igloo with the typical igloo that you think of a dome with like a rounded entryway pretty much dead on. Yeah, but it looks like your your cousin. They don't, uh cousin, cousin in law. It looks like he he knows, he knows what he's doing. Alex h Matthew, No, I said, nephew. Oh sorry, Uh yeah. There's no penguins in Alaska either, so that's the other problem as well. Chili will he

was not accurate, but cute. Nonetheless, No, but the igloo he built was accurate. That's right. And Josh, since we're talking igloes. Um, here's here's what a a naive person might say. Why in the world, if you're freezing cold out in Alaska, would you build a room out of ice and snow to sit in? How warm could that be? It would take somebody pretty I easy to say something like that, though, you know how warm it could be,

up to forty degrees warmer than it is outside. Of the iglu, buddy, Yes, And why chuck, where these furnaces coming from? Well, your body, for one, human body is a pretty good furnace. And um, when you cut down the wind chill, you're gonna take a big bite out of the cold. And you put a couple of warm Inuit bodies in there, and imagine these are big tough dudes. Anyway, they're probably just like exuding warmth. That'll it'll you know, radiate out and insulate. The igla will insulate the heat

in it traps the heat. Yeah. So I mean, if you're talking negative forty degrees, that's really cold. But if you could bring that up to zero, that's still cold, but it ain't like negative forty, which is the same in Celsius san fahrenhegh. Oh Yeah, yeah, good point. So, uh, the snow is an insulator, right, Yeah, it cuts down on the on the wind um of the melting. That's the other thing too. Yeah, when when you build an igloo, and don't worry, we're about to give you step by

step instructions on how to build an igloo. We should get alex on the orange um. At the very least you can verify it, right, that's right. Um, when you build an igloo, you uh, the sun when it does come out, or if it's out the whole time, especially during the day. Uh, it'll heat up enough possibly to melt some refreeze at night, which is what you want, melt refreeze, and um, you you your body heat also

may melt it from the inside out something. And then when you go out to hunt, it'll refreeze every time more likely, it's probably the more likely scenario. So this um thawing and freezing and thawing and freezing basically turns the igloo into this really um strong and insulated structure. And about a boom bought a being. You got yourself an insulated place to fish or at least to bunk down while you're fishing. So, Josh, are we at the point where we tell people how to build englu? I

don't think we can delay it any longer. Oh we can. Okay. You mentioned that iglu igloos are kind of out of fashion with the Inuit these days. Yeah, not as common, but they are becoming increasingly common at a ski resorts apparently. Yeah, if you are such a ski junkie and that you want to just basically wake up, roll out of bed, put on your skis and start skiing immediately. They have igloos, usually on the slopes um that you can rent igloo villages that you can run an igloo overnight or for

as long as you stay there. Pretty sweet, huh. Or if you're, you know, feeling squirrely, you can build on yourself. True down is that a segue? It is if you're if you've done it before, like your cousin in law, it could take as little as an hour. If you don't know what you're doing, it could take six or more. Yeah. I want to ask Alex actually how long it took because the first pictures are are at night, so it

clearly took them longer than a few hours. Yes, Like when I saw that someone could build one an hour, I don't know about that. I don't believe that. I'm pretty sure if you were raised as an Inuit, and you were, I don't know, in your twenties, I'll bet you could build an igloo in an hour. Yeah. And it looks like Alex and his buddies used a tub, like a shallow plastic tub to pack the snow down.

And that's smart. Inform the blocks. Yeah, so the way we're going to teach you how to do it requires a snow shovel, which looks an awful lot like a dry wall or not a snow shovel. It does require a snow shovel, but a snow saw which looks an awful lot like a dry wall saw. Um. And basically you want to go find some ice, like you were saying you normally wouldn't find ice or snow. Um, that's

just fallen. It's gonna work for an igloo. Yeah, you want to find um, wettish, hard packed like that's more solid, the better snow. Right, And what do you want to do with that snow chuck? Well, you want to use a little saw. You want to cut large blocks? Um, I guess you can very the size, but they recommend in the Complete Wilderness Training Guy, they recommend three ft long,

fifteen inches high, eight inches deep. Once you get your blocks, you want to start building, Uh, you know, put your foundation in a circle and start building up that foundation, working your way up as you go, decreasing in size as you go. And you also have to shape it at a at a slant obviously, or you're just gonna

have a ice block tower and not a domed roof, correct. Yeah, yeah, you um, you want to shape it at a slant like you said, but you also want to make the blocks decrease in sizes you get bigger decrease and and overlap. See you you did some some brickwork, and that's sort of the same principle there. I never built anything that was tall enough that I had to really build it

back to stagger it. And when I did, it was like the pre made castle rock wall that's designed to set back right right, so it didn't require any thought. But yes, if you if you kind of have something that's technically at a slight incline, it will provide structure if you can get it to connect as a dome like Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome exactly, very super strong structure.

So as you're building this and then you start to make the dome part, it should support itself if you've done it right, but you can always use sticks on the inside to support it temporarily until you get the dome complete, and then it's all pressing against each other. Uh, And then how do you finish it off with with the top. Well, you want to take a chunk of ice. You're what you're gonna have is this perfect dome, some

variation of a perfect dome. Um. And there's gonna be a central hole in the top, right, Yeah, like a little chimney. Yes, um, but you actually want to plug this one. That's right. This is one chimney you want to plug. And you take you cut another block that's going to be bigger than the hole, and you want to shape it so that it basically fits this this hole that's left over, um, which should be something like an octagon maybe roughly l shape, UM. And you want

to fit it in there perfectly. You want to cut it, shape it, put it in there so it's in there perfectly packed in there. Because this is your load bearing keystone. Basically, as long as that thing's intact, everything else should be fine. You'll lose that, you're in a lot of trouble. Um. And then after that, you're ready to start insulating it, filling in the cracks. You want to shovel snow on top of everything, and the loose snow that is what

you want. Now you want to work with it, and you're going to use some insulated gloves on your hands or else you're going to lose your hands to gangreen in a few days. Um. And you fill in the cracks with the snow. You just kind of smooth it over with your hands so that the snow packs into the cracks, and all of a sudden, this um separate block pattern is lost and you have a basically a smooth dome is what you're going for. Yeah, And at the end, it's it's a lot harder to try and

build a door into your thing. It's easier just to build a dome and then cut your door out after it's finished. There's a good point. And UM, A lot of people, UM, a true aficionado of the igloo would build a little L shaped entryway tunnel because that will cut down on the wind coming in even more because the wind has to turn a corner, right. Um. So you cut that hole in whatever shape you want, whether a key shape UM or a lot of people use like a tent shape and a frame, and you then

you cover it with blocks. You make like an entryway shelter basically, And then like you said, you you might want to put it as an L. And then you dig a hole into the snow so that you can get into it. But basically you're kind of crawling into the entryway it looked like, right, Um. And then after that you get inside and there's a very vital step that you might not think of, and that is drilling

air holes. Yes, because once you've packed it full of loose snow and it's um, it's basically mortared um, and you, uh, the thing melts and thaws and freezes and thaws and freezes and becomes even more of a solid structure. If you don't have air holes, you'll suffocate and die. Yes, especially if you do something like bring a camp stove or a Colman lantern or that kind of thing in there. Uh. We don't want to see that happen. No, And I don't even know that we should recommend bringing a stove

at all. Yeah, which this article says you can as long as you have enough air holes for ventilation. I just say build it for fun and just keep the noxious fumes out of it altogether. Yeah. I I should say that this article also specifically says that it is in no way, shape or form a meant to be a comprehensive guide to building. And equally, it's just the

basic Yeah, there are some good how to photos. So if you want to check it out, for sure some really good illustrations right as How Stuff Works is lousy with that's right. So guess that's it for igloos. They are everything we thought they were and more. Yeah. You know a lot of times you think, oh, I bet you, it's just our interpretation that you see in the movies

all these things. But they really do look just like that, and they're built just like that, and not a lot of surprises here, which is kind of reassuring in a lot of it makes me feel good. Yeah. So I guess if you want to catch up on your Chili Willy, we won't blame you. I found plenty on YouTube. He's adorable, more better, more better, more syrup more sirrup. I don't remember that one. That was a good one. Um No,

that's a parquet commercial, now, are you sure? Okay? Well, um check out Chili Willy and be sure to um go onto how stuff Works dot com and type in igloo I g l o O and is going to bring up a pretty cool, um step by step illustrated guide to building your own igloo sans camp stove with air holes. That's right, Um, I think, did I say handy search bar just did? Okay, Well, then it's time for a listener mail. Yeah, this isn't so much a mail. This is something I want to mention a long time

ago and kind of forgot remember the life straw podcasts. Yes, you don't do a quick recap of what a LifeStraw is. Yes, the LifeStraw is a portable device for purifying water um and it's cheap, it's easy to hang on to. It lasts for up to a year, and if you were in a place that's invested with guinea worm, you still need to drink water, but you don't want a guinea worm. LifeStraw helps, and I think the rotarians are big into getting them all over the world. They are, and so

is Stephen Neeman. And Steven wrote on our Facebook while after the LifeStraw podcast that he was pretty blown away by this thing and he thought its pretty cool invention and that he and his company the result of this podcast, their company is going to donate a minimum of six thousand lifestraws this year in nice six thousand huh. And I asked him if you minded mentioning this He said not at all. His company is Eleventh Hour Search and Alexandria, Virginia.

It's a very small staffing firm, so it's not like even some huge company that's doing this. And he said his wife works in Haiti for the US and that's where he is right now. I don't know if he still is is a little while ago. And they like the podcast on Haitian voodoo and so good an your brother donating six thousand lifestrows. That is awesome. Yes, so we just want to I mean that's kind to be

worth a T shirt. I would say, so Stephen got his shirt, not don't have his email, but if he wants to right in, yeah, right in, send us your email Stephen in your t shirts. Eye. Sorry it took so long to mention this, it got lost in the shuffle. Well good go and chuck um. If you are saving the world, we want to know how because we want to send you a T shirt if you're saving the

world in a verifiable and inspirational manner in a dramatic fashion. Yeah, you can go onto our Facebook page, Facebook dot com SLA stuff you should know. You can tweet to us s y s K podcast and you can send us an email. Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot Com. Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the how stuff works dot com home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two

thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you