How do Eskimos live in snowdrifts?

Each nationality has its own manners and customs, which are sometimes completely absurd for strangers. OUR editors found out how the Eskimos manage to survive in their amazing ice “huts”.

People have always been looking for a way to build a shelter from bad weather and predators from improvised materials. So the Eskimos had to learn to use what was in abundance on their ancestral land – snow. And what is most incredible, inside the snow-ice hemisphere it is surprisingly cozy and even warm.

It’s hard to believe, but the air temperature here fluctuates around +20 degrees Celsius, while it can get as hot as -40 degrees on the street.

There are several secrets here, many generations have perfected the method of building an igloo, which is the name of the traditional Eskimo dwelling. The easiest way is to adapt a snowdrift for “construction”. Especially when a shelter is needed for one person, the walls are thoroughly rammed, and then the “room” itself is dug up.

The comfortable size of such apartments is about two meters in height and a little more in width. There are no doors to the igloo. But the exit is arranged so that the cold does not penetrate the apartment. On the contrary, through the hole and the tunnel laid under the floor, fresh air always flows in, which is especially important if the stove is used inside. It is true that the shaft needs special reinforcement in heavy snowfall.

When building a room for a winter hut or there are no snowdrifts nearby, blocks of ice are used as building material. Cubes or bricks are cut out of them, interestingly the rectangles are only used to build the base of the igloo. Since the walls are laid in a spiral, gradually narrowing upwards, in subsequent rows the bricks change shape to a trapezoid, and then to triangles as a whole.

The Eskimos use a mixture of water and snow as mortar. The process can include “windows” of transparent ice or seal gizzards, but in general, the snow walls themselves perfectly conduct light, and besides, local residents use special lamps filled with fat for additional lighting.

Under the influence of heat and fire, the walls of the igloo easily melt from the inside and become even stronger, moreover, it is always dry in a snow house. For convenience and comfort, housewives put skins inside and hang them on the walls, but even without heating from a stove, the temperature in such an apartment does not drop below +15 degrees.

There are entire settlements of native people who winter in the traditional way. Their igloos are often connected by a whole network of corridors so that they don’t have to go outside again. And the Eskimo’s ability to build a shelter out of snow has long been adopted by northern explorers and climbers.

Source: lemurov.net

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