Friday, January 15, 2010
Notre Dame grad student returns home to Salem, builds igloo
Miranda Adkins | So Salem
Jenny Lewis and Kyle Ubl enjoy their icy architectural feat. —
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Jenny Lewis came home to Blackwood Drive from her first semester as a master's student of sacred music at the University of Notre Dame on Christmas Eve determined to get school off of her mind.
"When I finally made it to Christmas break I was 'papered' and 'tested' and 'examed' out," the 2005 graduate of Glenvar High School said. She went out in the back yard with a broom, spun around and created a circle in the snow that fell Dec. 18 and 19, and started building an igloo in her parents' shaded back yard.
"My parents didn't realize when I came home that I would involve them with backbreaking labor," said Lewis.
Never having constructed anything more than mini-fortresses as snowball-fight-shields, Lewis searched the Internet, especially Youtube, for directions and demonstrations.
"I call it pent-up childhood deprivation from snow," said her boyfriend, fellow Notre Dame student Kyle Ubl from Minnesota, who visited toward the end of her stay at home in Salem.
Lewis used a 15-quart Tupperware container to make bricks of snow, and she chiseled with a long, serrated cheeseknife and a handsaw. The "snow mortar" was created by mixing snow scrapings mixed with water. They did find a few "commercially built" igloo kits online, but stressed that the Lewis igloo was made completely from scratch!
Instead of melting her hip-height igloo on Christmas Day, the rain actually helped seal her first phase of construction with a layer of ice. Lewis said the process up to shoulder height was actually pretty easy. She and her parents even had a small fire in the igloo one night. (They got smoked out, but it sealed the inside walls very tightly.)
Getting the dome on top took a little more effort.
Ubl helped achieve the icy architectural feat. His father is an architectural mason, so he's been around bricks before. Hexagons were cut from the crunchy frozen snow in the front yard and gently put in place to make the ceiling.
Once done, they fit two benches and a small end table into the igloo. They placed rugs on the floor, cushions on the chair, and candles on the table to make the perfect place to have several friends over for a mug of hot chocolate. Inside on a 20-degree day, the temperature was about 10 to 15 degrees warmer than the winter weather outside of the igloo.
The Fighting Irish academics were tempted to paint the dome gold and place a statue of the Virgin Mary on top, but they decided they didn't want to offend their neighbors, who are big fans of Penn State.
"I don't think I'd do it again anytime soon, maybe once every 10 years," said Lewis. "My back and knees are killing me."
