We’ve seen some impressive igloos and ice hotels, but have you ever seen a rainbow igloo? Engineering student Daniel Gray, aka daniboi22, constructed this magical ice cavern while on break at his girlfriend Kathleen Starrie’s house in Edmonton. The New Zealander was met by Starrie’s mother, Brigid Burton, who had been preparing for his stay at their home months in advance. She proposed a bit of a challenge for Gray that would entail building an igloo out of colorful ice blocks.
Burton says, “I wanted to keep him occupied, not with my daughter necessarily. I wanted to keep him busy with something else. I didn’t want (Dan) to just be twiddling his thumbs while he’s here in Canada so I thought, this needs to be something that’s got some meat to it.” Since October, the protective mother had been collecting countless milk cartons to make the multihued icy building bricks out of water and food coloring for the ambitious project.
After 5 days of work in the rigid climate, known to reach a bone chilling -25F, the igloo was built by Gray with the help of Starrie’s family and a neighbor. Using “snowcrete” (a mix of snow and water) to cement the 500 ice bricks together and reinforce the structure, the igloo took approximately 150 hours of labor to complete, working 2 hours at a time with quick retreats into the home to warm up. In the end, Gray did a lot more than merely twiddle his thumbs in Canada.
via [reddit, Global Edmonton]