Are You Thinking of Winter Yet?

Ever Sleep in a Quinzee?

A few years ago I started teaching an outdoor education course that was running at my school.  Part of this program included a winter camp, where if conditions were favorable, the students would build and sleep in quinzees for the nights.  

I have been winter camping throughout my years as a Girl Guide member, where we slept in lean-to shelters but never a quinzee.  This meant that I had to learn exactly how to build, and also prepare myself for sleeping in one.  I also involved Hayden (he was only 6 at the time) in the building and prepping of the quinzee. My hope was that he would also spend the night.  At this suggestion, he was super excited!

To build a quinzee you need snow, a lot of it, and time.  The basics is gathering as much snow to create a mound that will have a diameter bigger than you are tall, and hopefully about 4 to 5 feet high. Then you let it sit, and dig out the shape leaving the walls about a foot thick.  You can measure this in the wilderness by breaking off branches and sticking them into the mound.  When you hollow it out, you stop when you hit the end of the stick.

We were lucky to have a large amount of snow fall and I figured that my backyard would have just enough to try this out.  After work that Friday, I headed out in the backyard with our big scooper and shoveled all the snow into a “big” pile.  It turned out to not be quite as big as I wanted so next time I would use the fence as part of the shelter.  I realized quickly that this was going to be a tight squeeze for the two of us.  

Once this sat for a few hours, I then hollowed out the space for us to sleep.  Again, it was not as big as I wanted, so the walls were a little thinner than the one foot thickness I wanted.  Hoping this would be enough, I gathered our 3 season sleeping bags and some blankets to prep our sleeping quarters for the night.  I do not own a winter sleeping bag, so we improvised with each of us sleeping with two sleeping bags and a blanket.  I can tell you that I was toasty warm!

My son lasted until about 4 am when he woke up and had to use the bathroom, but then realized he was actually a little cold.  The temperature dropped down to about minus 30 that evening. I actually had no idea how cold it was until the next morning. I was pleased that he did last that long, and I know we will try this again soon (we just need the snow first).

With a successful night in a quinzee, I was confident in having my students build these shelters for our upcoming winter trip. We went through YouTube videos on how to build a quinzee and I showed them the pictures above to help build their confidence.  If a 6 year old can last that long, then 15 – 16 year old students should be able to do this as well.  At our location, we had the perfect weather and perfect amount of snow.

The students got busy and in a few hours we had 5 shelters build at camp. As you can see in the picture below, they managed to get a good sized quinzee.  Each shelter is sized to fit 3-4 people as anything bigger would have too much extra space to warm up in the evening.  I love to challenge my students, so I gave them the challenge to last at least the one night in the shelters.  We did have a heated cabin on site, but you never know what you can achieve if you don’t push yourself. 

Throughout the night, many students came inside as they either got cold, lost too many bunk mates, or in one case actually got a little claustrophobic.  They were all really proud of themselves, even if they didn’t stay the whole night.  There was one boy, who slept in the shelter the second night of the trip, and actually was the only student to successfully sleep out both nights.  He did have a really good army winter sleeping bag, and commented that he was actually sweating from being so warm.

Safety…

Now I understand that some people are afraid of these shelters giving out and collapsing.  I had the students demonstrate that this is not an issue. As we are using a local conservation area, we have to destroy any shelters we build to not create any safety issues for day users.  Below it took 10, yes that’s 10 students jumping, pounding, punching, you get the idea, to break down each shelter. They were amazed at how hard it was to actually get these quinzees taken down.  So hopefully that will alleviate any fear that you might have of one collapsing in the middle of the night.

If you do wish to sleep in snow made shelters, I do encourage you to do your research, look up videos of different shelter types, and even try a practice version in your backyard like us.  This can be an alternative for any winter trips you might plan, or really just to have some fun in your own backyard.