‘Twas the night before the snowstorm, and all through Vassar College, students prepared for the frosty tempest that they had been warned about. With a blizzard oncoming, tension loomed in the air. Something had to fall. Probably snow, and a lot of it.
On the eve of last Sunday, each student prepared for the individual battle they would wage against the imminent 34-inch onslaught of snow. The shelves of My Market were cleared of all non-perishable items. Groceries were balanced in bulky coat arms and constricting mittens. Students awaited the oncoming blizzard with concerns circling through their minds: Would classes be canceled? Would we make it out alive? What if the Gordon Commons is closed?
Amongst these students, repentant and subject to the snow, is Fia Marrison ’28, sporting purple snowflake-print snow pants with an eager smile on their face. You can find them on Noyes Circle, famously renowned as the Nircle, constructing an ever-expanding igloo. For Marrison, the snow is a resource, an opportunity to expand the igloo. No snow is too much—no igloo is large enough.
In light of the heavy snowfall this winter, Marrison has built an igloo bigger than ever before. However, this is not their first rodeo. In fact, Marrison has been in the igloo business since they were eight years old.
“I’ve built igloos since I was a little kid because my dad showed me how,” Marrison said. “Over the years, I got more invested, and we built bigger ones. But we were only able to make ones with one chamber because it was just the two of us using shovels in our yard.”
Since coming to Vassar, Marrison has wanted to bring their igloo-building expertise to campus. The first snow in mid-December provided the necessary material. With a Noyes frying pan, a Deece cup and a dream, the journey began.
“I’ve been wanting to make this,” Marrison said. “So I started piling and then had friends join, and we made one chamber and then a second one.”
Once the initial structure had been carved out, Marrison had to retreat indoors to do some planning. As the primary architect, they make drawings in their sketchbook to plan out what the rooms of the snow fort—or the “Snort”—will look like.
“I’m an environmental science major with an art correlate, but literally the past couple of days, I’ve been thinking of making it an art major,” Marrison said. “I’m thinking about doing architectural drawing or something.”
However, the blueprints are not the only technical component of the igloo construction. Marrison expertly calibrates the space during the building process, crawling through the chambers and ensuring that each section is the correct size.
“If you have one single room that’s too big, it’ll collapse,” Marrison said. “So we made one room and caved it out to be a space and then basically piled a lot of snow onto the side and then tunneled forward.”
Logistics do not just come into play with the internal structure. Marrison takes great measures to ensure that enough snow is packed outside the igloo. This process requires Marrison to enlist fellow craftsmen to ensure that the structure is of the highest quality.
“You can test on the inside if people block the entrances and light comes through because then, you know you should pack more snow on. Definitely don’t dig there,” Marrison said. “But also, I had this plastic pipe that we’d push through the wall, but it broke. So hopefully, I can get a metal pipe to use.”
Evidently, building an igloo of this caliber is no small feat. Luckily, Marrison has more than just expertise: They have passion.
“Once I start doing it, I can’t stop,” Marrison said. “I’m digging for ages. There’s something about building it with my hands. You can always add a bit more or dig a bit more or fix it up more.”
All this digging eventually required a material upgrade. Marrison had to outsource an icepick from the Vassar Outing Club and assistance from Facilities Operations. After all, it takes a village to build an igloo.
“It snowed eight inches one day over break and I wasn’t in New York,” Marrison said. “So I emailed Dean Jaeger of Grounds Services and asked him really, really nicely if they could maybe plow some of the snow to protect it. And so they did.”
Even as the head architect for this impressive structure, Marrison remains humble in their gratitude for each and every person who has helped maintain their frozen fortress.
“It was so nice,” Marrison said. “I want to talk to the individual people who plowed it. I emailed asking if I could so hopefully we will soon.”
With the help of Dean Jaeger and the Facilities team, the igloo has become a hub for community building. When they are not busy working on expansions, Marrison enjoys spending time in the igloo with their friends.
“Over break, I came to do a snow fort sleepover with some friends,” Marrison said. “We didn’t actually sleep in the fort, but I worked on it from 1 p.m. to 3 a.m.”
The fort has an array of foraged decor adorning its exterior. In the future, Marrison plans to decorate the interior as well.
“I brought these thin logs that you can see in the first chamber because my plan is, for the third chamber, to make it really big and carve out half seats and put the logs there, so it’s like a council room,” Marrison said.
While Marrison is immensely proud of what they have accomplished thus far, they are aware of the potential dangers that the structure poses.
“I want to try and keep it up as long as possible, but I don’t want it to collapse on a student,” Marrison said.
Although the igloo will not be here forever, Marrison sees the silver lining in the inevitable loss.
“If it’s getting really gross, and I’m worried it will collapse, I might just walk over it and jump on it,” Marrison said. “We can have a snort destroying party.”