Quinzee: the Snow Fort That Could Save Your Life

Have you ever wanted to escape the constraints of the indoors, while sleeping like Han and Luke in The Empire Strikes Back? The Quinzee is a fantastic way to stay warm in the winter, you can build it with any age of child and have a ton of fun. You can also use one to survive the night in a winter emergency.

I have been sleeping in quinzees every winter for the last 8 years and have built at least 10 in that time. Despite my initial doubts I have found them to be far warmer than any cabin, way more fun to build, and much more rewarding to destroy!

Follow through these steps to learn the best way (in my experience) to build one of these fantastic snow shelters on your own. You can adapt these to snow banks or any survival situation.

First, Some safety notes:

• Shelters can collapse! Do not leave someone alone in the shelter!
• I am NOT a survival expert, use your own judgement whenever you do anything!
• If you are new to this, have a warm building nearby as a backup. There is no shame in going inside if you are too cold.
• Keep a small shovel or trowel inside incase the snow outside piles up.

To start you'll need a shovel, or two. If you have a larger group then you could get different people to bring different shovels.

I have found a wider shovel is useful for making the larger pile, and a skinnier shovel to get snow on top. Trowels and small shovels work well inside, so do gloved hands.

You can make do with any shovel that you have.

To start you should make a huge pile of snow. You can get your diameter by lying on the ground. The largest quinzee I have built slept 6 people. I would always sleep with a minimum of two people in the shelter. After you've established the length and width you need it to be (add about a foot for wall width), you can mark the outer limit in the snow with a shovel.

Once you have your outline you are ready to go! Begin piling snow until it looks like the large mound above. This can take a lot of snow (seriously), it will need to be 4-6 feet tall for an average shelter. If you have a large snow bank you can just skip this step and use the existing pile of snow!

Once you have a full pile of snow, get several sticks about a foot long. Shove them into the shelter mound leaving just the end showing. These sticks will be your guide for ensuring the wall width is thick enough. When you start hollowing the inside, these guides will be the difference between success and collapse.

This is the most important, and easiest, part. All you have to do is ignore the pile for about three hours. I would recommend a snowball fight, tobogganing, a movie with hot chocolate, or any combination of these.

By letting the pile sit it compresses the snow and makes it much more stable when you go to dig it out. The longer it sits the stronger it will be. When it is done, it will have sunk by as much as 1 foot from its original height.

If you are using a pre-formed snowbank, it has likely sat there for a while already so you can skip on ahead to the next step!

This part is the most fun, especially for the kids!

First, you want to chose your door location very carefully. Find the side that points away from the wind (or else you will be VERY cold) and start digging it out.

Be careful not to make the entrance hole to big. The larger the hole, the more heat will escape. You can generally use a toboggan or shovel as a door to block the hole, so constrain your opening to that size.

Once you are inside the mound it can take a while to dig out. Eventually there will be enough room inside for a friend to help you dig. Taking shifts also works very well.

If you hit the end of one of your sticks, stop digging there! That means that you are very close to digging through the wall. And finally, only dig out as much as you need to be comfortable. You will be mainly lying down in here so keep the ceiling low, the smaller the space the more concentrated the warmth.

Maybe not decorating in the usual sense... Once we have hollowed out the shelter, we need to smooth off any jagged parts of the ceiling and floor. This will allow any condensation to run to the edge of the shelter, rather than driving onto you as you sleep.

Now we can carefully remove the twigs from the shelter, this will look a bit nicer, and provide plenty of small ventilation shafts!

Once the twigs are removed we can add a lit candle in the centre of the shelter.

This process is called candling. It's not essential, but is recommended for a safer night out. We leave a candle in the shelter to melt a thin layer of snow. This layer re-freezes as ice, reinforcing the structure. This will add strength to the shelter (and a bit of warmth).

Once you have let the candle sit for a while (the longer the better) then you can move it out of the way. I normally keep it on a shelf of snow to add even more heat before bed (though it can sometimes be a bit too much).

You can add a tarp, mylar sheet, or other cover for the floor. Then put down a sleeping pad and your sleeping bag to complete the shelter!

You are now ready to crawl (or stomach slide) your way in. Pull your makeshift door closed, hop into your sleeping bag, blow out the candle, and enjoy a comfy warm night in the snow.

If you did it right you'll have an impossible-to-beat story to tell at school or work the next day! If you didn't, you can do it again just as soon as you get warm!

To reiterate, some safety notes:

• Shelters can collapse! Do not leave someone alone in the shelter!
• I am NOT a survival expert, use your own judgement whenever you do anything!
• If you are new to this, have a warm building nearby as a backup. There is no shame in going inside if you are too cold.

• Keep a small shovel or trowel inside incase the snow outside piles up.

Finally:

If you want to do more stuff like this, checkout your local Scouts! They offer programs for youth from ages 5-26 (in Canada and most of the world). It's a ton of fun and they are always looking for more volunteers.