Quinzee Building

Step 5 Make in-floor lighting

Now the main reason we chose to build our quinzee on a lake was so that we could give it in-floor lighting. To achieve the desired effect, we built a second quinzee beside our first one, and joined them together with a tunnel to reduce the light reaching it from the entrance. We also kept the walls of the second quinzee thicker to make it even darker inside.

With both quinzees finished, we scraped down to lake ice & cleared a patch on the south side of the second quinzee, creating a window. We also scraped down to lake ice inside the second quinzee. And when I say "we", I really mean Eric. He was our diligent scraper.

To help clear the ice even more I flooded the outside window & the floor of the second quinzee with twenty liters (4.3 gallons) of hot water each.

What was the result of all this extra work? Sunlight shone down through the ice window outside the quinzee & was transmitted up through the ice in the floor, giving off a wonderful green light.