Dunningan, Pierre A History of Housing Paper Presented to Prof. Pieter Sijpkes by Edith Dennis‐LaRocque 260409863
In Canada, it has become pejorative to use the word Eskimo because of its connotation of “raw meat eater”. Now the debate is open as to whether that is truly what it means or if it means “snowshoe netter”. Regardless of its etymology, “Eskimo” is the only term inclusive of both the Inuit and the Yupik. The term Inuit was adopted to refer to circumpolar natives in 1977 in Canada, as Inuit refer to themselves as Inuit, which means men. It took me a trip to Hudson Bay to understand the scarcity of resources there. Of course I had read about it, but I needed to be there to visualise the 360° of absence of construction material, of fuel. As De Poncins says, “the Eskimos have achieved true wealth of owning nothing”1. Circumpolar people’s only source of food, fuel and material comes from the game they hunt, thus they have to constantly be on the move in order to survive. This is why it is so important for their shelter to be made from available material and fairly quick to build up. In Inuktitut, Igloo means shelter. It is only in our western interpretation of the word that it becomes specific to the snow house. It is probably the most ecological man‐made shelter, for it once it melts, it leaves no trace but the objects left inside. For this very reason, it is hard for archaeologists to determine the origin of this temporary dwelling. Shape Igloos are dome shaped, which makes them very economical in terms of the amount of snow used. This shape also has its advantages in terms of aerodynamism. It is aerodynamic in all directions, a fact which is non neglectable when there are no trees to protect from the wind. Once inside, the circular shape offers equal warmth all around, with no cold corners. They vary 1
P.8, DE PONCINS, GONTRAN, Eskimos, Hasting House Publishers, New York, 1949, 104p in size as they can shelter from one man to extended families, in which case they are usually built as annexe apartments or caches for meat storage, “where the family would protect their fortune from the ravages of a wandering bear or their own dogs”2. Samuel King Hutton relates in his description of his adventures in Labrador3, how the Eskimos, being smaller than him, kept building the igloo several inches too small for him to lay comfortably. He describes that after getting accustomed to his size they would build the subsequent snow houses to fit him. Building as close of a fit as possible means body heat is sufficient to warm up the space. Location Contrary to popular belief, ice igloos are not commonly used as dwellings, they are mainly used for storage. They are the perfect meat cache because dogs can’t penetrate them. 4 They would be much colder than snow houses. In choosing the location of the igloo it is thus important to find the right snow. The right density will be easy to cut yet will hold together. An expert hand can locate the perfect snow by probing with the same knife that will be used for cutting the blocks. “There is so little stable snow in the Artic which is one of the least humid sections of the globe, that it is sometimes necessary to search several miles before finding a sufficient layer.”5 Generally, by a “gently sloping hillside” is where the snow hardens best6. 2
P.54, HOUSTON, JAMES, Confessions of an Igloo Dweller, Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data, Toronto, 1921, 320p 3
P.89, HUTTON, SAMUEL KING, By Eskimo Dog‐Sled and Kayak, Mayflower Press, Plymouth, 1930, 219p 4
P.53, HOUSTON 5
P. 32, DE PONCINS 6
P.83 , HUTTON, Construction Once the location for the igloo is chosen, the first step consists in tracing a circle delimiting the shelter. Within that circle, there will be enough blocks for the whole shelter. Then one man starts digging a wedge‐shaped hole in the middle of the circle. This is to give himself leeway to carve the slabs from frozen snow. They are usually about six to ten inches thick, two or three feet long and eighteen to twenty inches high, slightly curved in. They are disposed around the circle, edge to edge, tipped inward. Their top is chipped to allow better leaning towards the center. The firsts blocks are trimmed forming a slope from the ground to the height of a block so that the subsequent row allows to build the igloo up in a spiral fashion, see first image in annexe, all the way to the top. This snail‐like fashion to build prevents the walls from collapsing, thus no scaffolding during the erection is necessary7. At this point, the key block is missing for the dome to be complete. Since it needs to be placed from the outside, the entrance is cut for the man to place the cut key block in or to place it on top, cutting it so that it would drop in place. “The Inuit can cut blocks very rapidly and, with his eye, can measure their size to such accuracy that the blocks almost invariably fit their intended places”8. The configuration of the hut withstands the weight of a grown Inuit, allowing him to lean on it to place the final block. The floor is smoothed, and a one‐foot platform of snow is built, occupying about two thirds of the floor space. Once the animal skins are laid atop, it will serve as bed. In northern Quebec though, stunted slender willows are used to insulate from the cold.9 While the man is making the bed, the wife or the child fills the interstices of the igloo from the outside by shoveling powdered snow. 7
P.35, SHOENAUER, NORBERT, 6,000 Years of Housing, Garland Publishing, New York, 1981, 222p P.35, SHOENAUER 9
P.55, HOUSTON 8
Depending on the time available, this may be all there is to the snow house. If such is the case, a large block of snow is used from within to shut the entrance. The whole operation takes between one and two hours. It really is an ideal shelter when a storm or a blizzard is menacing. “Even a three year old child knows that it takes five to six steps in the blizzard to get lost. You can’t hear anything you can’t see anything”10. “I met a missionary in Labrador who had sat in a snow house for two whole days while a blizzard roared outside. Neither he nor his drivers dared to go outside, for nobody could stand against the terrible wind, and there was nothing to hear but the roar of it and nothing to see but the whirling snow. So there they sat, the three of them, while the blizzard blew. And gradually the win ate away the wall of snow, making it thinner and thinner, until all of a sudden, with a roar and a swoop, the snow house fell to pieces and was scattered in a million fragments by the storm”11 Often, to prevent unwanted drafts, the igloo walls are doubled at the platform height. 12 By containing much entrapped air, snow is an efficient insulating material. 10
P.53, GERMAIN, GEORGES‐HÉBERT, Inuit, les peuples du froid, Éditions Libre expression, Montréal, 1995, 159p 11
P.87 HUTTON 12
P.54 HOUSTON Optional features Tunnel If there is time a “porch” is built. It is a long passageway called igduling13 built against the wind and lower than the platform, about twelve inches lower than the main floor. In doing so, the warm air that rises is prioritised for the living space. The vaulted passage is so low in fact that one usually has to crawl in to get to the dome. Air vent The oil lamps used for light, heat and cooking burn usually seal fat, but may as well burn other animal fat, this being the only fuel available. For aeration purposes, an air vent called nostril is carved over the entrance. At night, it is usually stuffed with a cloth or a mitten to avoid heat loss. An interesting bonus from the oil lamp is that the heat it creates melts the surface of the inside of the snow house, the water then trickles towards the lesser dense areas of the walls, and freezes there, contributing to reinforcing further the igloo. Once the hut is constructed, all openings are shut and the lamp is lit. Once all the surfaces have sweat, the entrance and vent are opened, letting a cold draft in freeze solid the “water‐permeated walls”. “Igloos are known to have obtained such rigidity in this fashion that they have easily supported the massive body of a wandering polar bear”.14 Window Although the whole structure of a snow house allows for light to penetrate throughout, sometimes a window is added below the nostril. It is made from ice of course. But in order to be 13
14
P.35, SHOENAUER P.39 SHOENAUER clear, or almost clear, it needs to be made from four to six inch thick lake ice since salty ice is too hazy.15 Igloos meant vanquishing the weather, meant surviving. They are key in gender roles, in appropriating one’s place in a community. Igloos are more than an ideal shelter, they house memories, they raise the future members of a community. They are representative of a culture, both from an outside point of view and as a self‐image. They are part of the collective memory of a people who is fighting assimilation. They have become emblem of the Inuit identity. 15
P.54, Houston Bibilgraphy: DE PONCINS, Gontran, Eskimos, Hasting House Publishers, New York, 1949, 104p GERMAIN, Georges‐Hébert, Inuit, les peuples du froid, Éditions Libre expression, Montréal, 1995, 159p HOUSTON, James, Confessions of an Igloo Dweller, Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data, Toronto, 1921, 320p HUTTON, Samuel King, By Eskimo Dog‐Sled and Kayak, Mayflower Press, Plymouth, 1930, 219p SHOENAUER, Norbert, 6,000 Years of Housing, Garland Publishing, New York, 1981, 222p http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Igloo_spirale.jpg http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/poles/slideshows/igloo.html http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Igloo_spirale.jpg http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/poles/slideshows/igloo.html p.32, SHOENAUER, NORBERT, 6,000 Years of Housing, Garland Publishing, New York, 1981, 222p p.38, SHOENAUER, NORBERT, 6,000 Years of Housing, Garland Publishing, New York, 1981, 222p p.23, DE PONCINS, GONTRAN, Eskimos, Hasting House Publishers, New York, 1949, 104p