Speaker 1: All right, everybody, it's Chuck here. It's Saturday, and you
Speaker 1: know what that means. It's time for Stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 1: Select episode curated by me. This one's about igloos. How
Speaker 1: much fun? Right from March two eleven, and this one
Speaker 1: should be landing here in the winter as well, so
Speaker 1: you can go out and build an igloo yourself, That's
Speaker 1: what I say, but be safe while you're doing it.
Speaker 1: There's a fun episode. I remember enjoying this one quite
Speaker 1: quite a lot, so I hope you guys like it.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Speaker 1: Clark with me as always as Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Hello, sir,
Speaker 1: it makes this stuff you should know. All right, it's right,
Speaker 1: unless I'm in the wrong place. You're a little under
Speaker 1: the weather still, Aren't you just as sick as I
Speaker 1: was when we recorded Fainting Goats? Yes? Not not ten
Speaker 1: minutes ago. Yes, So Chuck hasn't been sick all week.
Speaker 1: It'll probably just be a couple of days. So clear.
Speaker 1: If you have a robust um immune system for a
Speaker 1: man of your age, remember when you were actually sick
Speaker 1: for weeks and weeks like in year one. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think like eighteen podcasts were screwed up because I
Speaker 1: was just I could not get better. I thought, you,
Speaker 1: those are the unhealthy days. So you lead a much
Speaker 1: healthier lifestyle, much much healthier. You're not. We don't need
Speaker 1: to check you into the sanitarium like we had to
Speaker 1: back in the day. I'm okay, now I'm not. I've
Speaker 1: gotten over my consumption. Hopefully you will very soon. I
Speaker 1: have all faith that you will. Right, So, Chuck, while
Speaker 1: we're waiting for you to recuperate, I have I want
Speaker 1: to talk to you about technology specifically. Some of the
Speaker 1: oldest technology known to man clothes. Clothing is technology. Yeah
Speaker 1: so didn't think so, but it is, Chuck, Probably more
Speaker 1: than anything else. The thing that defines humanity is our
Speaker 1: desire and our ceaseless striving to become more than more
Speaker 1: than human, to take ourselves out of the rat race
Speaker 1: of evolution, the crapshoot of genetics, and to basically take
Speaker 1: hold of our biological destiny. Right. Yeah. We sort of
Speaker 1: did that with clothing many many, many years ago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's that's what we do. We use technology to
Speaker 1: do that and clothing was one of the earliest ones.
Speaker 1: Because we are a subtropical species humans are. Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: not supposed to live in really cold places, right, but
Speaker 1: we do. We've managed to migrate from you know, somewhere
Speaker 1: near the equator where we can run around without clothes too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because we're what they call the sexy epoch um to
Speaker 1: some colder climbs. Thanks to close Along the way, we
Speaker 1: um figured out that we could use hammers and or
Speaker 1: use stones for hammers and other tools. Um, and we
Speaker 1: figured out that we could build our our own shelters
Speaker 1: make things warm on the inside. Right. So eventually over
Speaker 1: the years we figure out enclosed heating systems. And then now,
Speaker 1: thanks to all this, we have swedes right Involvos. Involvos
Speaker 1: thanks to the sweds. So the technology of Volvos are
Speaker 1: a direct result of the technology of clothes. Wow, in
Speaker 1: a weird way, you're exactly right. But somewhere along the
Speaker 1: line there was a branch of that linear development of
Speaker 1: thought and talent of technology all the way to enclosed
Speaker 1: shelters that house swedes, where somebody figured out that you
Speaker 1: can make it enclosed shelter out of blocks of hard
Speaker 1: packed snow, and we know those today as ig loose. Yes,
Speaker 1: and do you know what the Inuit called the igloo igloos? Question?
Speaker 1: That's a good that's a great. That was a good
Speaker 1: question though, because, yeah, it's an Innuit word for what,
Speaker 1: believe it means snow house. So the Inuits are just
Speaker 1: among the most pragmatic speakers on the planet. You're very
Speaker 1: cut and dry. Yeah, they call their snow houses igloos, right,
Speaker 1: that just makes other sense. Yeah, we're talking about the
Speaker 1: Canadian tundra, Josh, and they uh, you know, tps and
Speaker 1: castles and other things that were being built were all
Speaker 1: well and good if you're in in Europe, or if
Speaker 1: you are in a warmer climate, let's say, like the
Speaker 1: Florida Painhandle, you don't have to take throught of ice
Speaker 1: to quarry stone exactly. But if you're in the Canadian tundra,
Speaker 1: those aren't really good options. So, uh, snow, hard packed
Speaker 1: snow became the masonry, if you will, for the Inuits. Right,
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and get to this Eskimo thing. Yeah, yeah, um,
Speaker 1: Eskimo and Inuit are one and the same. There are
Speaker 1: two different terms for the same group of people. These
Speaker 1: people who Um inhabit areas spanning from Siberia to Alaska,
Speaker 1: Canada Greenland UM thirty five hundred mile range, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: which makes them the most widely spread Aboriginal group on
Speaker 1: the planet. Yeah. An Aboriginal, for those of you don't know,
Speaker 1: doesn't just refer to the Aborigines in Australia. It's any um,
Speaker 1: any any any indigenous indigenous, the first people in that region. Yes,
Speaker 1: or it would be Aboriginal, yes, okay, that was the
Speaker 1: ones you get pushed around by the Europeans Aboriginal um
Speaker 1: And if you want to insult in Inuit, you just
Speaker 1: go ahead and call them an Eskimo. Yeah. Apparently it's
Speaker 1: a derogatory term because it was a term that the
Speaker 1: white man gave. I think it was another tribe, was it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it was an outside group. I was just figure
Speaker 1: it's the white man. Yeah, So it was another group
Speaker 1: named them Eskimos, which um it was thought to mean
Speaker 1: eaters of raw meat or raw blubbers what I've heard
Speaker 1: as well, blubber. But then they later thought that eskimoment
Speaker 1: to netch snowshoes, to build snowshoes, and linguists can't prove it,
Speaker 1: although that's kind of what they think. But in the
Speaker 1: glory that is language, things can go from their original
Speaker 1: meaning to a popular meaning, and it's old meaning is meaningless. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's only what people think or use, right, right, which
Speaker 1: is how l o l is a word, that's right.
Speaker 1: So we're going to refer to them, refer to them
Speaker 1: as Inuit, because that's the that's the way to do it.
Speaker 1: We don't want to alienate anybody, no, especially the Inuit,
Speaker 1: because they are tough people and they have survived for many, many,
Speaker 1: many years in conditions that don't seem to be survivable,
Speaker 1: especially way back in the day. But they made it through, right,
Speaker 1: and they're thriving actually too. We'll get to that in
Speaker 1: a second. Yeah, I was surprised to see that. But
Speaker 1: um chuck. A couple of other facts about these, uh,
Speaker 1: the Inuit, which means the people, right, So they call
Speaker 1: their snowhouses, they glues, they call themselves the people. It's
Speaker 1: just it's very spare. I could have been a good Innuit,
Speaker 1: I think. I think so too. Keep things simple, fall down, goat, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they don't. They they have never really established a
Speaker 1: formal system of government. It's the family is generally the
Speaker 1: the center of the community. Yeah. Um, the class system.
Speaker 1: Males are the figure heads. Yeah. No, class system is
Speaker 1: pretty cool. Um. And basically, if you're a boy, you're
Speaker 1: a hunter. If you're a girl, you marry a hunter
Speaker 1: and hopefully produce more boy hunters because the everyone's equally
Speaker 1: responsible for coming up with food and I imagine every family,
Speaker 1: um is that's what that means. Every family is equally
Speaker 1: responsible for contributing to the food in the community. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So the more boy hunters, the better. So um, fascinating group.
Speaker 1: And they have never lived in it loses permanent shelters, huh. Well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's important that you mentioned hunting because clearly, if
Speaker 1: you are living on the Arctic tundra, there's one thing
Speaker 1: that you're probably not going to have, and that is
Speaker 1: a vegetable garden. So they are very carnivorous as a
Speaker 1: as a people. They do a lot of hunting. They
Speaker 1: did a lot of hunting of seals, which is probably
Speaker 1: they were called blubberry marketing blood reads and we're there
Speaker 1: are seals, is gonna be a lot of ice sea ice? Yeah,
Speaker 1: which leads to another peculiar trait of the Inuit. Peculiar
Speaker 1: meaning unique specific um kayak angst. Remember we talked about
Speaker 1: that on the webcast like a long time ago, remember that,
Speaker 1: and everything was cut off in the middle of it,
Speaker 1: and like it was Guy Kawasaki day. And I wrote
Speaker 1: a blog post on it saying like as I was
Speaker 1: saying before I was cut off, and kayak angst is this, um,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a condition specific only to the Inuit,
Speaker 1: where an Inuit males too, where you become afraid of
Speaker 1: going out to hunt seals in a kayak, usually following
Speaker 1: an episode where you've been up for several days. The
Speaker 1: sun very rarely sets because at summertime, which is the
Speaker 1: only time you're when when you can hunt seal really um,
Speaker 1: So you have a loss of sense of time. You're
Speaker 1: completely without any lamb mark, a reference point. It's all
Speaker 1: just horizon and sea ice. So you're without no bearings,
Speaker 1: no sense of time, and you doze off and wake up,
Speaker 1: and you have no idea how long you've been asleep,
Speaker 1: how far you've drifted, and you may be out there
Speaker 1: drifting for the rest of your life. And you finally
Speaker 1: do find land again, you make your way back to
Speaker 1: your community and you become terrified at the thought of
Speaker 1: getting back in a kayak again. Kayak angst Yeah, specific
Speaker 1: only to the Innuit. I don't remember that at all.
Speaker 1: That's so weird. Well you should read my blog posts.
Speaker 1: I usually have an inkling, but that that one doesn't
Speaker 1: ring true for me. So the Inuit did not live
Speaker 1: in iglas, Josh as you said, that is not true.
Speaker 1: People might think that um Inuit tribes just had igloos
Speaker 1: all over the place and that was their house. They
Speaker 1: were really hunting shelters. Yeah, it's like a hunting camp
Speaker 1: like um Robin Williams uh, fishing camping, insomnia, Yeah, except
Speaker 1: nutty because of no sleep and too much sun. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well al Pacino was yeah right, that was Christopher Nolan,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, he's just amazing. Although you had inception problems, right,
Speaker 1: it was really just Ellen Page. Get her out of
Speaker 1: the movie. You're okay. It wasn't even her necessarily, although
Speaker 1: I'm not a big fan of hers. Um. I think
Speaker 1: she's a she's a good actress and everything, but you know,
Speaker 1: I'll never forgere it for Juno. But um, it was
Speaker 1: more her character, Like clearly her character was put in
Speaker 1: afterward because the producers were like, or the studio execs
Speaker 1: were like, wait, what is going on? So they wrote
Speaker 1: in Ellen Page's character to explain everything to everybody at
Speaker 1: each step so that you can keep up with this
Speaker 1: really dense movie. You love getting me wound up about
Speaker 1: that inception around John All right, where were we the Innuits?
Speaker 1: They were hunting camps, like we said, and uh, they're
Speaker 1: still around today and they're booming. Um not igloos. Actually
Speaker 1: they're they're not quite as common, but they did a
Speaker 1: study who is just the human rights program in Canada
Speaker 1: in Canada Department of Canadian Heritage said that there could
Speaker 1: be as many as sixty eight thousand, four hundred Inuit
Speaker 1: in Canada only in Change. So um, yeah, they're they're
Speaker 1: booming as a people. Pretty cool. So they're thriving. Igloos
Speaker 1: are were never um, permanent shelters or structures for them,
Speaker 1: And um they had kayak angst One other thing too,
Speaker 1: eskimo kisses. Yeah, what's the deal there? So you know
Speaker 1: it's like rubbing the tip of your nose. Yeah, it's cute,
Speaker 1: it is. It's not entirely accurate though, I'm sure, but
Speaker 1: they did kiss with their noses. Yeah, but it was um,
Speaker 1: you would put your no, your nostrils to the face,
Speaker 1: usually around like the cheeks, right below the eyes. Um.
Speaker 1: The you would put your nose to a loved one's
Speaker 1: face like that and inhale deeply, and that was that's
Speaker 1: the real Escobote kiss. Who are Inuit kiss? Interesting, isn't it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: They had it wrong, though, you know how it right?
Speaker 1: The French. Yeah, they figured it out and everyone was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is the way to kiss. Forget that no stuff,
Speaker 1: all right, So let's talk about igloos for a second.
Speaker 1: They were built out of blocks of ice. They are
Speaker 1: not built out of the kind of snow that you
Speaker 1: probably have in your front yard in Ohio in the wintertime.
Speaker 1: It depends on how what it was. Although my cousin
Speaker 1: in law, Alex Schreiber, Ohio State University student, built an
Speaker 1: igloo last winter. He and his buddies. Check this thing out, dude, nice, wow,
Speaker 1: I should post this. I'm gonna get to post this.
Speaker 1: But it's like seven ft tall at least. It's huge,
Speaker 1: and it's it's like really well constructed. He's sitting on
Speaker 1: top of it and it's not caving in. If I
Speaker 1: built an igloo that you know, it wouldn't last very long.
Speaker 1: Pretty cool though. That is a backyard in Ohio too.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's gray day, leafless trees everywhere. Yeah. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: and his buddies you know, clearly had enough boredhom in
Speaker 1: time to build this cool. So Alex Driver huh yeah, awesome.
Speaker 1: Is he listening right now? I hope? So yeah he listens,
Speaker 1: And I told I get my heads up. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: you have to post that he's gonna right back and say,
Speaker 1: don't mention the iglu don't they always huh yeah, so chuck.
Speaker 1: Even though like, um say, a hunting expedition went out
Speaker 1: or even a single hunter went out and built an iglu,
Speaker 1: um that that it wasn't just the single igloo every
Speaker 1: single time. Sometimes they lived in him for longer periods.
Speaker 1: Sometimes more people lived in a group, and they would
Speaker 1: actually um create compounds out of igloos by you know,
Speaker 1: melding them together, creating walkways, breeze waste. Pretty cool. And
Speaker 1: there were some that um basically igloo cities that came
Speaker 1: about where you I think they would have like halls
Speaker 1: for banquets and beasts and like balls and stuff like
Speaker 1: like Inuit balls held in. Um. Uh, well, an igloo,
Speaker 1: a big, large igloo. Pretty cool. Though I didn't know this.
Speaker 1: I had no idea. I always pictured just the single
Speaker 1: and I also thought they lived in them. So this
Speaker 1: was this one. I was because we're like the totem poles,
Speaker 1: we should probably also while we're just like busting things
Speaker 1: left and right. Um Chili Willie, helpful little penguin from
Speaker 1: the He was so cute. I went and watched when
Speaker 1: to refresh my memory. He was very cute. He wasn't
Speaker 1: I I thought he would be mischievous or I remembered
Speaker 1: him being mischievous like Woody Woodpecker, who was a jerk. Um. No,
Speaker 1: Chili Willie was a very helpful, cute, sweet little baby penguin.
Speaker 1: Um and his little igloo, the typical igloo that you
Speaker 1: think of a dome with like a rounded entryway, pretty
Speaker 1: much dead on. Yeah, but it looks like your your cousin,
Speaker 1: They don't, uh cousin, cousin in law. It looks like
Speaker 1: he he knows, he knows what he's doing. Alex, not Matthew, No,
Speaker 1: I said, nephew, Oh sorry, Uh yeah, there's no penguins
Speaker 1: in Alaska either, So that's the other problem as well.
Speaker 1: Chili will he was not accurate but cute. Nonetheless, No,
Speaker 1: but the igloo he built was accurate. That's right. And Josh,
Speaker 1: since we're talking igloes. Um, here's here's what a a
Speaker 1: naive person might say. Why in the world, if you're
Speaker 1: freezing cold out in Alaska, would you build a room
Speaker 1: out of ice and snow to sit in? How warm
Speaker 1: could that be? It would take somebody pretty naive to
Speaker 1: say something like that, though, you know how warm it
Speaker 1: could be up to forty degrees warmer than it is
Speaker 1: outside of the iglue buddy, Yes, And why chuck, where
Speaker 1: these furnaces coming from? Well, your body, for one human body,
Speaker 1: is a pretty good furnace, yep. And um, when you
Speaker 1: cut down the wind chill, you're gonna take a big
Speaker 1: bite out of the cold. And you put a couple
Speaker 1: of warm Inuit bodies in there, and imagine these are
Speaker 1: big tough dudes. Anyway, they're probably just like exuding warmth
Speaker 1: that'll it'll you know, radiate out and insulate. The igloo
Speaker 1: will insulate that heat in it trips the heat. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I mean, if you're talking negative forty degrees, that's
Speaker 1: really cold. But if you could bring that up to zero.
Speaker 1: That's still cold, but it ain't like negative forty, which
Speaker 1: is the same in Celsius san fahrenheigh. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: good point. So, Uh, the snow is an insulator, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it cuts down on the on the wind um of
Speaker 1: the melting. That's the other thing too. Yeah. When when
Speaker 1: you build an igloo, and don't worry, we're about to
Speaker 1: give you step by step instructions on how to build
Speaker 1: an igloo, we should get alex on the orange. Um.
Speaker 1: At the very least you can verify it, right, that's right. Um,
Speaker 1: when you build an igloo, you uh, the sun when
Speaker 1: it does come out or if it's out the whole time,
Speaker 1: especially during the day. Uh, it'll heat up enough possibly
Speaker 1: to melt some refreeze at night, which is what you want,
Speaker 1: melt refreeze and um you you your body heat also
Speaker 1: may melt it from the inside out something. And then
Speaker 1: when you go out to hunt, it'll refreeze every time
Speaker 1: more likely, it's probably the more likely scenario. So this
Speaker 1: um thawing and freezing and thawing and freezing basically turns
Speaker 1: the igloo into this really um strong and insulated structure
Speaker 1: and about a boom, bought a being. You got yourself
Speaker 1: an insulated place to fish, or at least to bunk
Speaker 1: down while you're fishing. Yeah, so, Josh, are we at
Speaker 1: the point where we tell people how to build eglue?
Speaker 1: I don't think we can delay it any longer. Oh
Speaker 1: we can. Okay. You mentioned that igloo igloos are kind
Speaker 1: of out of fashion with the Inuit these days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not as common, but they are becoming increasingly common at
Speaker 1: a ski resorts apparently. Yeah, if you're such a ski
Speaker 1: junkie and that you want to just basically wake up,
Speaker 1: roll out of bed, put on your skis and start
Speaker 1: skiing immediately, they have igloos, usually on the slopes. Um
Speaker 1: that you can rent igloo villages, that you can run
Speaker 1: an igloo overnight or for as long as you stay there.
Speaker 1: Pretty sweet, huh. Or if you're, you know, feeling squirrely,
Speaker 1: you can build one yourself. True down, is that a segue?
Speaker 1: It is if you're if you've done it before, like
Speaker 1: your cousin in law, it could take as little as
Speaker 1: an hour. If you don't know what you're doing, it
Speaker 1: could take six or more. Yeah, I want to ask Alex, actually,
Speaker 1: how long it took because the first pick yours are
Speaker 1: or at night, so it clearly took them longer than
Speaker 1: a few hours. Like when I saw that someone could
Speaker 1: build one an hour, I don't know about that. I
Speaker 1: don't believe that. Well, I'm pretty sure if you were
Speaker 1: raised as an intuit, and you were I don't know,
Speaker 1: in your twenties, I'll bet you could build an iglue
Speaker 1: in an hour. Yea. Yeah, And it looks like Alex
Speaker 1: and his buddies used a tub, like a shallow plastic
Speaker 1: tub to pack the snow down, and that's smart inform
Speaker 1: the blocks. Yeah, so the way we're going to teach
Speaker 1: you how to do it requires a snow shovel, which
Speaker 1: looks an awful lot like a dry wall or not
Speaker 1: a snow shovel. It does require a snow shovel, but
Speaker 1: a snow saw, which looks an awful lot like a
Speaker 1: dry wall saw. Indeed. Um, and basically you want to
Speaker 1: go find some ice like you were saying you normally
Speaker 1: wouldn't find ice or snow. Um that's just fallen. It's
Speaker 1: gonna work for an iglu. Yeah, you want to find
Speaker 1: um wettish, hard packed like that's more solid. The better, snow, Right,
Speaker 1: And what do you want to do with it, snow Chuck, Well,
Speaker 1: you want to use your little saw. You want to
Speaker 1: cut large blocks. Um, I guess you can vary the size,
Speaker 1: but they recommend in the Complete Wilderness Training guy, they
Speaker 1: recommend three ft long, fifteen inches high, eight inches deep.
Speaker 1: So once you get your blocks, you want to start building.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, put your foundation in a circle and
Speaker 1: start building up that foundation, working your way up as
Speaker 1: you go, decreasing in size as you go. And you
Speaker 1: also have to shape it at a at a slant obviously,
Speaker 1: or you're just gonna have a ice block tower and
Speaker 1: not a domed roof. Correct. Yeah, yeah you um, you
Speaker 1: want to shape it at a slant, like you said,
Speaker 1: but you also want to make the blocks decrease in
Speaker 1: sizes you get bigger decrease and and overlap. See you
Speaker 1: you did some some brickwork, and that's sort of the
Speaker 1: same principle there. I never built anything that was tall
Speaker 1: enough that I had to really build it back to
Speaker 1: stagger it. And when I did, it was like the
Speaker 1: pre made castle rock wall that's designed to set back right,
Speaker 1: so it didn't require any thought. But yes, if you
Speaker 1: if you kind of have something that's technically at a
Speaker 1: slight incline. It will provide structure if you can get
Speaker 1: it to connect as a dome like Buckminster Fuller's geodesic
Speaker 1: dome exactly, very super strong structure. So as you're building
Speaker 1: this and then you start to make the dome part,
Speaker 1: it should support itself if you've done it right, but
Speaker 1: you can always use sticks on the inside to support
Speaker 1: it temporarily until you get the dome complete and then
Speaker 1: it's all pressing against each other. Uh. And then how
Speaker 1: do you finish it off with with the top? Well,
Speaker 1: you want to take a chunk of ice. You're what
Speaker 1: you're gonna have is this perfect dome, some variation of
Speaker 1: a perfect dome. Um. And there's gonna be a central
Speaker 1: hole in the top, right, Yeah, like a little chimney, yes, um,
Speaker 1: but you actually want to plug this one. That's right.
Speaker 1: This is one chimney you want to plug. And you
Speaker 1: take you cut another block that's going to be bigger
Speaker 1: than the hole, and you want to shape it so
Speaker 1: that it basically fits this this hole that's left over, UM,
Speaker 1: which should be something like an octagon maybe roughly L shape. UM,
Speaker 1: And you want to fit it in there perfectly. You
Speaker 1: want to cut it, shape it, put it in there
Speaker 1: so it's in there perfectly, packed in there. Because this
Speaker 1: is your load bearing keystone. Basically, as long as that
Speaker 1: thing's intact, everything else should be fine. You'll lose that,
Speaker 1: you're in a lot of trouble. Um. And then after
Speaker 1: that you're ready to start insulating it, filling in the cracks.
Speaker 1: You want to shovel snow on top of everything, and
Speaker 1: the loose snow that is what you want. Now you
Speaker 1: want to work with it, and you're going to use
Speaker 1: some insulated gloves on your hands or else you're going
Speaker 1: to lose your hands to gangreen in a few days. Um.
Speaker 1: And you fill in the cracks with the snow, you
Speaker 1: just kind of smooth it over with your hands so
Speaker 1: that the snow packs into the cracks, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, this um separate block pattern is lost and
Speaker 1: you have a basically a smooth dome. Yes, is what
Speaker 1: you're going for, right. Yeah, And at the end, it's
Speaker 1: it's a lot harder to try and build a door
Speaker 1: into your thing. It's easier just to build a dome
Speaker 1: and then cut your door out after it's finished. There's
Speaker 1: a good point and um, a lot of people, Um,
Speaker 1: a true aficionado of the igloo would build a little
Speaker 1: L shaped entryway tunnel because that'll cut down on the
Speaker 1: wind coming in even more. Yeah, because the wind has
Speaker 1: to turn a corner, that's right. Um. So you cut
Speaker 1: that hole in whatever shape you want, whether a key
Speaker 1: shape um or a lot of people use like a
Speaker 1: tent shape and a frame. Yeah. Yeah. And you then
Speaker 1: you cover it with blocks you make like an entry
Speaker 1: way shelter basically, and then like you said, you you
Speaker 1: might want to put it as an L and then
Speaker 1: you dig a hole into the snow so that you
Speaker 1: can get into it. But basically you're kind of crawling
Speaker 1: into the entryway. It looked like yeah, right, um. And
Speaker 1: then after that you get inside. And there's a very
Speaker 1: vital step that you might not think of, and that
Speaker 1: is drilling air holes. Yes, because once you've packed it
Speaker 1: full of loose snow and it's um, it's basically mortared
Speaker 1: um and you uh, the thing melts and thaws and
Speaker 1: freezes and thaws and freezes and becomes even more of
Speaker 1: a solid structure. If you don't have air holes, you'll
Speaker 1: suffocate and die. Yes, especially if you do something like
Speaker 1: bring a camp stove or a Colman lantern or that
Speaker 1: kind of thing in there. Uh, we don't want to
Speaker 1: see that happen. No, And I don't even know that
Speaker 1: we should recommend bringing a stove at all. Yeah, which
Speaker 1: this article says you can, as long as you have
Speaker 1: enough air holes for ventilation. I just say, build it
Speaker 1: for fun and just keep the noxious fumes out of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah all together. Yeah, I I should say that this
Speaker 1: article also specifically says that it is in no way,
Speaker 1: shape or form a meant to be a comprehensive guide
Speaker 1: to building an iglue. It's just the basic. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: are some good how to photos, so if you want
Speaker 1: to check it out for some really good illustration, right huh,
Speaker 1: as how stuff works is lousy with That's right. So
Speaker 1: I guess that's it for igloos. They are everything we
Speaker 1: thought they were and more. Yeah. You know a lot
Speaker 1: of times you think, oh, I bet you, it's just
Speaker 1: our interpretation that you see in the movies all these things.
Speaker 1: But they really do look just like that, and they're
Speaker 1: built just like that, and not a lot of surprises here,
Speaker 1: which is kind of reassuring. In a lot of words.
Speaker 1: It makes me feel good. Yeah, so I guess if
Speaker 1: you want to catch up on your Chili Willy, we
Speaker 1: won't blame you. I found plenty on YouTube. He's adorable,
Speaker 1: more better, more better, more syrup, more syrup. I don't
Speaker 1: remember that one. That's a good one. Um. No, that's
Speaker 1: a parque commercial. Now are you sure? Okay? Well, um,
Speaker 1: check out Chili Willy and be sure to um go
Speaker 1: onto how stuff works dot com and type in igloo
Speaker 1: I g l o O and is going to bring
Speaker 1: up a pretty cool um step by step illustrated guide
Speaker 1: to building your own igloo sans camp stove with holes.
Speaker 1: That's right? Um, I think did I say handy search bar?
Speaker 1: You just did? Okay, Well, then it's time for a
Speaker 1: listener mail. Yeah, this isn't so much a mail. This
Speaker 1: is something I want to mention a long time ago
Speaker 1: and kind of forgot. Remember the life straw podcast? Yes,
Speaker 1: you don't do a quick recap of what a LifeStraw is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: A life straw is a portable device for purifying water. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's cheap, it's easy to hang onto, it lasts
Speaker 1: for up to a year, and if you were in
Speaker 1: a place that's invested with guinea worm. You still need
Speaker 1: to drink water, but you don't want guiney worm. LifeStraw helps,
Speaker 1: and I think the rotarians are big into getting them
Speaker 1: all over the world. They are, and so is Steven Neeman.
Speaker 1: And Steven wrote on our Facebook while after the LifeStraw
Speaker 1: podcast that he was pretty blown away by this thing
Speaker 1: and he thoughts pretty cool inventioned and that he and
Speaker 1: his company the result of this podcast, their company is
Speaker 1: going to donate a minimum of six thousand lifestraws this
Speaker 1: year and nice six thousand not bad, huh. And I
Speaker 1: asked him if he minded us mentioning this. He said
Speaker 1: not at all. His company is Eleventh Hour Search in Alexandria, Virginia.
Speaker 1: It's a very small staffing firm, so it's not like
Speaker 1: even some huge company that's doing this. And he said
Speaker 1: his wife works in Haiti for the US, and that's
Speaker 1: where he is right now. I don't know if he
Speaker 1: still is. Is a little while ago, and they like
Speaker 1: the podcast on Haitian voodoo and so good an you
Speaker 1: brother donating six thousand lifestraws. That is awesome, So we
Speaker 1: just want to reckon more than awesome. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: very cool. That's gotta be worth a T shirt. I
Speaker 1: would say so Stephen shirt. I don't have his email,
Speaker 1: but if feels right in, yeah, right in. Send us
Speaker 1: your email, Stephen in your T shirt size. Sorry it
Speaker 1: took so long to mention this, it got lost in
Speaker 1: the shuffle. Well, good going, chuck Um. If you are
Speaker 1: saving the world, we want to know how, because we
Speaker 1: want to send you a T shirt. If you're saving
Speaker 1: the world in a verifiable and inspirational manner in a
Speaker 1: dramatic fashion. Yeah, you can go onto our Facebook page,
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com, slash stuff you should know, You can
Speaker 1: tweek to us s y s K podcast, and you
Speaker 1: can send us an email. Stuff podcast at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. For more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics, is it how stuff works dot com. Want
Speaker 1: more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com home page.