An igloo is a shelter built of snow, traditionally constructed by Inuit peoples of Canada's Central Arctic and the Qaanaaq area of Greenland. Snow serves as the building material because the air pockets trapped within it act as an insulator, and the structure is raised in a catenary, or curved, shape rather than a true sphere, which resists buckling as the snow compresses over time; builders cut individual blocks with saws and blade tools, shaping them into four sided pieces and then five or six sided pieces for better interlocking, in a technique compared to Inca stonework, and the hole left where the blocks were cut typically becomes the lower half of the shelter. The insulation is effective enough that with exterior temperatures as low as minus forty five degrees Celsius, body heat alone can keep the interior between about minus seven and sixteen degrees Celsius.
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