Igloo – Winter housing
The Inuit nation is famous for their igloo, also called Inuit Snowhouse, but Igloo weren’t actually used all that often. They were typically a seasonal house or hunting lodge. Igloo design depended on their occupants; a family might have a huge one, around 4.5 meters (15 feet) in width. Hunters would build smaller ones for themselves as they travelled. Igloo might be single family winter homes, or connect igloo with others to create complex clusters.
Hudson Bay area Iglulingmuit people created clusters that functioned like a full-on indoor city, with domes for multiple families, storage, space for the dogs, food storage, and more. Snow and ice is pretty dependent on a constant temperature, and there was just no guarantee that igloos wouldn’t end up melting into a mushy pile during the summer months. Families moved into tents (called tupiq) during warm months.
