Joint Activity: Water Wars

Balloon Toss
Water Balloon Battleship
Water Volleyball
Balloon Hot Potato (Troy had to pop the balloon on his head)

Scoutrees 2011: Fundraising at Sears

Watch "Jon Sings for all the Trees - Scoutrees 2011" on YouTube

More Igloo Analysis

We did our big igloo camp last weekend and we put multiple construction methods into practice (preliminary tests were in January).

I wasn't able to be there the first day, but the group built several quinzees and part of an igloo. The area had seen quite a bit of variation in temperatures and the snow was very sugary as a result and hardly wanted to stick together when they tried using the igloo kit. In fact, they found the blocks of the third row were collapsing in place and they gave up on the structure in favour of quinzees. However, the so leaders were too aggressive in hollowing theirs out and it collapsed on them before it was ready. one leader slept in the foundation of the igloo while the other crammed himself into his car for a poor night's sleep.

My arrival the following day with a fresh batch of blazer scouts renewed the group's waning enthusiasm for igloo-building. This corresponded nicely with some afternoon sun that made the top layer of snowy soft and sticky.

We managed to build the rest of the igloo In about 75 minutes, working with just two people for much of the time. We were almost incredulous that the device worked so well -- the snow seemed to defy gravity.

With the top closed off, our inside man had to dig his way out with a shovel. We found that there was about 6 feet from floor to ceiling in this igloo, which was 8 feet in diameter across the floor. There was enough space for about 6 or 7 people to sit comfortably in a circle along the inside walls, and the light from outside showed through the walls enough to light the interior reasonably well.

Although I was pretty jazzed to spend the night inside our new igloo, I gave up my place to the boys who had laboured to build the foundations the previous day. Since they didn't block off the entrance when they went to bed, they found it wasn't any warmer in there than it had been in their quinzee the night before. The big difference for them was how much space they had to move around without rubbing up against a wall of snow and ice.

Instead of sleeping in the igloo, I spent the night in this elegant quinzee, which we expropriated from two scouts. They were each a foot shorter than your average leader, so we spent a few minutes hollowing it out before we settled in. The evening temperature was about -4C when we went to bed at 10:30 pm, and my thermometer in the quinzee read about +6C or so, which is several tons better than the -20C that I experienced the previous year sleeping in a tent by myself. I had a thicker sleeping pad (with no leaks!) and a bivy sac. I found it so warm in there that I didn't have to zip up my mummy bag past my chest (the bivy sac kept things pretty airtight as it was.

The next day, we were able to get seven of us on top of the igloo before the roof collapsed.

We didn't try out the Eskimold blocks on this trip, since the snow had been poor and this method seemed obviously inferior to the Ice Box kit. However, on Saturday Scott and I gave it a try in the front yard, with snow that was bordering on slushy because of the warm weather.

The sticky snow produced results much better than we'd seen with the sugary snow earlier in January. Scott and I were able to build up a decent-sized wall in about 10 or 15 minutes. We couldn't really go any higher without an additional helper to keep it from, so we left it at 3 rows. Two days later the wall collapsed because of rapid melting. Scott was sad at first, but then I told him to run over and kick at the rubble and that made him happy again.

Igloo vs Igloo vs Quinzee

Almost every winter since I was 12 I have been winter camping. Strangely, I have never slept the night in a snow shelter, although I've come pretty close. As a young Scout I slept in a refrigerator box, half-buried in the snow (I'm too big to do that now). As a Venture, I was buried while digging out a quinzee (snow cave) and dragged out by my heels. Every other time I have slept in a tent -- except for one night when the whole troop sought refuge from -35C temperatures in the heated bathrooms. One other night started out with me in a tent alone and finished with me in the driver's seat of a car (I blame my leaky air mattress for soaking my sleeping bag. Since that unfortunate night behind the wheel I have been interested in finding a better way.

I think igloos are the answer. In my opinion, igloos are better than quinzees.

If you did not come up through the Scout program in a four-season zone like Canada, you may not know much about igloos or quinzees. This is from Wikipedia:

A quinzhee or quinzee (pronounced /ˈkwɪnzi/) is a shelter made by hollowing out a pile of settled snow. This is in contrast to an igloo, which is made from blocks of snow.
Differences between a quinzhee and an igloo
Quinzhees are not usually meant as a form of permanent shelter, while igloos can be used for seasonal and year round habitation. The construction of a quinzhee is slightly easier than the construction of an igloo, although the overall result is somewhat less sturdy and more prone to collapsing in harsh weather conditions. Quinzhees are normally constructed in times of necessity, usually as an instrument of survival, so aesthetic and long-term dwelling considerations are normally exchanged for economy of time and materials.

I did some research and procured two different types of igloo-building kits in the fall, which we tested last night on the church lawn -- along with some quinzees dug out of the snowbank. Here are the results:

1. Classic Quinzee (dugout cave)



The boys were pretty enthusiastic about digging out these caves, and pretty soon they had bored 4 sizable holes into the snow bank. In fact, some of them kept digging for a good 40 minutes after the activity was over -- foregoing their hot chocolate and donuts to keep at it. They were completely covered in snow by the end.
Verdict: Quinzees are pretty quick and simple to build, but you pretty much get soaked doing it.



2. Eskimold Igloo Kit (interlocking blocks)



We used these 2 plastic bucket-like forms to make interlocking blocks for the igloo wall. Unfortunately, the snow was dry and not very sticky, so it was pretty tough going. The boys had to stand on the snow in the molds to pack them tightly enough that they would stay. I think if we had better snow or if we had more molds, this method would have been more successful.
Verdict: Not a bad way to build an igloo if the conditions are good.


3. Ice Box Igloo Kit (continuous form)



This next one had me really excited. There are some igloo enthusiasts out in Colorado (including one guy with a big shaggy beard) that have been building these things for years and they developed their own equipment to make an igloo, combining elements of true Inuit technique with modern technology. The result is that you can build a decent igloo with nearly any quality of snow in a matter of a few hours. Of course, we only had about 75 minutes to work with, so our first crack at it only got into the second row. You make continuous blocks with this 3-side cube, which rotates around the center of the igloo at the end of a rod that is staked into the ground.
Verdict: Awesome.


From what I've read, the interior of a tent will be about 10 degree warmer than the outside air on a winter camp -- so if you've got to cope with -25C inside if it's -35C outside (ouch). On the other hand, the interior of an igloo can be at about the freezing mark, regardless what the outside temperature is.


And although you work longer building an igloo compared to a quinzee, building the quinzee is a whole lot wetter.


Igloo wins.


[Note: We camped in an Ice Box igloo in Kananaskis in February: Link]

What Boys Do In Winter - 2009

Two years ago I posted an entry entitled "What Boys Do In Winter":


A few years have passed, and the faces are different, but boys are still boys:



This video was from a recent overnight trip to the Kananaskis Lower Lake campground about an hour west of Calgary. The daytime temperatures were decent, but it dropped to -26C during the night. As is typical with winter camps, discomfort and the call of nature rouses you out of bed before you would really prefer. To shake the boys out of their groggy haze and to give them something positive to remember about the camp, we went out in a clearing created by a frozen pond and played British Bulldog and Capture the Flag in the deep, deep snow.

The games gave way to random sequences of violence for the benefit of the camera.

Rafting the Kickinghorse River

We took the scouts whitewater rafting down the Kickinghorse River (near Golden, BC) last month, and we ended up with some sweet pics. It was the last day of the season on that river and it was little bit chilly, even with our neoprene outfits on. I was sitting up front in our raft and it seemed like I got more than my share of waves that splashed over my head, sending streams of icy water down the inside of my wetsuit. It was tons of fun and we're planning on going back again next year.

My Raft

The Other Raft

A week or two later, we did a video log segment of the trip, since the boys like to complain whenever we ask them to pick up a pen and write something. One of them says it's "too much like school". Clearly, he has not found the true joy in education that I have found these last year. In the video, look for Scouter Troy to dish out pushups to one of the boys for chatting with girls while he was talking. Some of the girls from church had wandered into our classroom by then, and one of them did the pushups just for fun. She also made up several details about the trip that were better than the info provided by the boys who actually went on the trip.

. "Three-and-a-half-and-a-half"

Games in the Park