Terry Forster
A HOUSE OF SNOW AND ICE
I am a traveller, a hunter on the cold Arctic ice. I’ve been pursuing seals for many days and now I must rest my self. I've been awake for almost thirty hours now and the icy cold wind is penetrating my seal skin clothing. The ground around me is frozen and I sense in the wind that a snow storm is on its way, there are no trees or any other life anywhere to be seen on the ice. The wind is bitterly cold with flakes of icy snow that sting my cheeks and survival for me now depends on a shelter.
My name is Grok Inuit, I am an Inuit Eskimo hunter out here on the arctic ice miles away from home and I need to build an igloo to protect me from the oncoming storm. An igloo will be my shelter built from snow and ice, my father taught me how to build one when I went out onto the ice with him as a young boy and we spent many weeks hunting seals on the ice. Not all the people of the Arctic build igloos. Only the Inuit people of Northern Canada can build them but they were never permanent houses for the Inuit people. Sometimes a very large igloo might be built where one or more related families sometimes live together throughout the cold winter months. They share food and make new clothing they can sell at the government store in town. Tent-like houses built from Caribou skins might shelter those same families in the warmer summer months.
The old men carve ivory harpoons, knives and ornate ivory carvings on walruses tusks during this time of the year and again sell them to tourists in the big towns and cities. Today the Inuit people live mostly in wooden houses. But the very few Inuit hunters who still travel far from their homes still build igloo shelters to help them survive the coldest of weather. Igloos raise an interesting question. Why a house of ice? There are several reasons that an ice house works surprisingly well. First of all, the ice blocks out the chilling wind. Second, ice is good at trapping heat. We say that ice is a good insulator.
A small igloo with a candle inside, or even just the body warmth of the inhabitants, can cause the inside of an igloo stay surprisingly warm. Have you ever wondered why a blanket can keep you warm? After all, a blanket doesn’t make its own heat. By wrapping yourself in a blanket, you are capturing the heat made by your own body. That heat can keep you warm even if the air outside the blanket is very cold. An igloo works in the same way. By trapping your own body heat, or the heat produced by even a small burning lamp or candle, the inside of the igloo can stay much warmer than the outside. This heat starts to melt the inside of the igloo. That might seem like a bad thing. But in fact as the inside walls of the igloo start to melt, they come into contact with the snow and ice closer to the outside of the igloo. This colder snow and ice causes the water to refreeze. In this way the inside walls of the igloo start to change from snow, which can be weak, to ice, which is much stronger.
A well-built igloo is strong. A grown man can stand on top of the igloo without causing it to collapse. So how do I go about building my igloo? I will start with blocks of well-packed snow cutting these blocks using my sharp knife. The knife I am going to use is made of whale bone, it was given to me by my father when I was a boy, some Inuit men use a stone or metal knife. Next I will place the first circular ring of snow blocks on a firm, level patch of icy ground. When the first ring is complete I will start on the second ring. Now the real magic happens. As an Inuit builder I know how to tilt the second row inwards, just a little, so that fewer blocks are needed for the second row than for the first. Think about a circular race track. If you race on the inside of the track, you run a shorter distance than if you race on the outside of the track. In the same way, as the igloo walls grow upward, and as the “circle” of the igloo becomes smaller, it needs fewer blocks. As the wall grows, the blocks begin to arch together. By carefully fitting the blocks together and as a skilled Inuit igloo builder, I know how to stop the blocks from falling inward. Finally, I will place the key block on the very top of the igloo. Into this key block I will cut a hole to let out the smoke from the fire I will build inside to keep myself warm and cook my food. People say that all Inuit people eat only raw meet but this is not true.
When out on the ice and there is no snow to build an igloo in bad weather we protect our bodies by lying on the ice on top of a seal skin. As we have to eat to keep our strength up we always carry with us frozen cooked meat that we defrost with the heat from our bodies. We have to eat, this is a required part of survival, frozen Caribou meat is full of vitamins and minerals and once thawed it serves as a welcome nutritious meal. The door of my igloo is large enough for me to crawl through and I have placed Seal furs across the opening of the igloo to keep out the cold wind. Inside, my igloo may be small in height or tall in height and I have made mine so that I may stand up inside. I will also build a fire and place animal furs on the icy floor of the igloo to serve as my bed.
If I had a friend with me we might tell stories, or plan our next days hunting on the ice. Once the hunters have rested for the night, they will leave their igloo behind and continue their hunt for seals. Next morning when I awoke there was a snow storm blowing from the west across hundreds of miles of flat motionless ice and it was at least thirty degrees below freezing. No man can survive for very long in conditions like this so, I will have to stay put inside my igloo and keep warm until it blows over.
Three days and four nights the storm blew from the west then it slowly died away to almost total calmness. Inuit men have hunted and survived the snow storms with the help of igloos for thousands of years. Today, as temperatures in the Arctic rise upward we have discovered that the ice is becoming thinner, too thin and the snow is not as thick and heavy as it falls from the sky as it used to be.
Building an igloo shelter these days is sometimes impossible as the snow is so thin on the ice surface. Its not only that, but the animals that the we have hunted for many generations are growing very rare. Hunters are also in danger because thinner ice can break and a snowmobile or a sled can fall through the ice into the icy waters taking the driver with it. New animals, creatures the Inuit people have never seen before, are appearing. Soon the hunters may decide that their hunting trips to the ice are too risky. They may stop making these trips; they may stop building houses from snow and ice.
A way of life, and a place to live, could soon disappear forever.
1,329 Words
A HOUSE OF SNOW AND ICE
I am a traveller, a hunter on the cold Arctic ice. I’ve been pursuing seals for many days and now I must rest my self. I've been awake for almost thirty hours now and the icy cold wind is penetrating my seal skin clothing. The ground around me is frozen and I sense in the wind that a snow storm is on its way, there are no trees or any other life anywhere to be seen on the ice. The wind is bitterly cold with flakes of icy snow that sting my cheeks and survival for me now depends on a shelter.
My name is Grok Inuit, I am an Inuit Eskimo hunter out here on the arctic ice miles away from home and I need to build an igloo to protect me from the oncoming storm. An igloo will be my shelter built from snow and ice, my father taught me how to build one when I went out onto the ice with him as a young boy and we spent many weeks hunting seals on the ice. Not all the people of the Arctic build igloos. Only the Inuit people of Northern Canada can build them but they were never permanent houses for the Inuit people. Sometimes a very large igloo might be built where one or more related families sometimes live together throughout the cold winter months. They share food and make new clothing they can sell at the government store in town. Tent-like houses built from Caribou skins might shelter those same families in the warmer summer months.
The old men carve ivory harpoons, knives and ornate ivory carvings on walruses tusks during this time of the year and again sell them to tourists in the big towns and cities. Today the Inuit people live mostly in wooden houses. But the very few Inuit hunters who still travel far from their homes still build igloo shelters to help them survive the coldest of weather. Igloos raise an interesting question. Why a house of ice? There are several reasons that an ice house works surprisingly well. First of all, the ice blocks out the chilling wind. Second, ice is good at trapping heat. We say that ice is a good insulator.
A small igloo with a candle inside, or even just the body warmth of the inhabitants, can cause the inside of an igloo stay surprisingly warm. Have you ever wondered why a blanket can keep you warm? After all, a blanket doesn’t make its own heat. By wrapping yourself in a blanket, you are capturing the heat made by your own body. That heat can keep you warm even if the air outside the blanket is very cold. An igloo works in the same way. By trapping your own body heat, or the heat produced by even a small burning lamp or candle, the inside of the igloo can stay much warmer than the outside. This heat starts to melt the inside of the igloo. That might seem like a bad thing. But in fact as the inside walls of the igloo start to melt, they come into contact with the snow and ice closer to the outside of the igloo. This colder snow and ice causes the water to refreeze. In this way the inside walls of the igloo start to change from snow, which can be weak, to ice, which is much stronger.
A well-built igloo is strong. A grown man can stand on top of the igloo without causing it to collapse. So how do I go about building my igloo? I will start with blocks of well-packed snow cutting these blocks using my sharp knife. The knife I am going to use is made of whale bone, it was given to me by my father when I was a boy, some Inuit men use a stone or metal knife. Next I will place the first circular ring of snow blocks on a firm, level patch of icy ground. When the first ring is complete I will start on the second ring. Now the real magic happens. As an Inuit builder I know how to tilt the second row inwards, just a little, so that fewer blocks are needed for the second row than for the first. Think about a circular race track. If you race on the inside of the track, you run a shorter distance than if you race on the outside of the track. In the same way, as the igloo walls grow upward, and as the “circle” of the igloo becomes smaller, it needs fewer blocks. As the wall grows, the blocks begin to arch together. By carefully fitting the blocks together and as a skilled Inuit igloo builder, I know how to stop the blocks from falling inward. Finally, I will place the key block on the very top of the igloo. Into this key block I will cut a hole to let out the smoke from the fire I will build inside to keep myself warm and cook my food. People say that all Inuit people eat only raw meet but this is not true.
When out on the ice and there is no snow to build an igloo in bad weather we protect our bodies by lying on the ice on top of a seal skin. As we have to eat to keep our strength up we always carry with us frozen cooked meat that we defrost with the heat from our bodies. We have to eat, this is a required part of survival, frozen Caribou meat is full of vitamins and minerals and once thawed it serves as a welcome nutritious meal. The door of my igloo is large enough for me to crawl through and I have placed Seal furs across the opening of the igloo to keep out the cold wind. Inside, my igloo may be small in height or tall in height and I have made mine so that I may stand up inside. I will also build a fire and place animal furs on the icy floor of the igloo to serve as my bed.
If I had a friend with me we might tell stories, or plan our next days hunting on the ice. Once the hunters have rested for the night, they will leave their igloo behind and continue their hunt for seals. Next morning when I awoke there was a snow storm blowing from the west across hundreds of miles of flat motionless ice and it was at least thirty degrees below freezing. No man can survive for very long in conditions like this so, I will have to stay put inside my igloo and keep warm until it blows over.
Three days and four nights the storm blew from the west then it slowly died away to almost total calmness. Inuit men have hunted and survived the snow storms with the help of igloos for thousands of years. Today, as temperatures in the Arctic rise upward we have discovered that the ice is becoming thinner, too thin and the snow is not as thick and heavy as it falls from the sky as it used to be.
Building an igloo shelter these days is sometimes impossible as the snow is so thin on the ice surface. Its not only that, but the animals that the we have hunted for many generations are growing very rare. Hunters are also in danger because thinner ice can break and a snowmobile or a sled can fall through the ice into the icy waters taking the driver with it. New animals, creatures the Inuit people have never seen before, are appearing. Soon the hunters may decide that their hunting trips to the ice are too risky. They may stop making these trips; they may stop building houses from snow and ice.
A way of life, and a place to live, could soon disappear forever.
1,329 Words