WEYBURN - Weyburn resident Josh Mainil was inspired by memories of ice castle walls built for him by his mom Deana on the farm as he grew up, and decided to try an igloo project on his front lawn for his three kids.
Where his mom used empty milk cartons, saved up all year, to make the frozen ice blocks, he went to Dollarama and bought 150 lasagna tins, and filling them with water and food dye, he set them out on his back deck at first, then on his front steps.
Josh and wife Lexie then began taking these blocks of ice and built an igloo on the front lawn of their Barber Crescent home, spending a good four or five hours a night for five days in a row to build the structure up and enclose it.
The couple estimates they spent a total of about 18 hours in building it, using around 350 blocks of ice altogether, made blue by the food dye.
Once the igloo was finished, he added projection lights inside to light it up, and on Thursday, added strings of light around the exterior to make it truly stand out.
Josh guessed the first night they began, the temperature was around -18 overnight, but then it dipped to -25, and the ice blocks froze much faster each night.
For mortar, he used a slush mixture with water and snow, and it helped to freeze each block in place as the wall was built up.
As the kids enjoy going in and out of their igloo, Josh indicated he may not quite be done, as he may yet build a small fireplace inside with an ice chimney.
The couple admit to worrying a little about the mild temperatures on the way to Weyburn this weekend, and hope there won’t need to be many repairs to be made once the temperatures return to a more wintry level.
Meantime, Josh said maybe more of these structures will pop up around the city when they see how nice his looks, noting he’s had a request already to borrow his lasagna tins to make the ice blocks with.
