CONFLUENCE -- Jay Duchene of Mt. Lebanon stood on the front porch of his weekend home in this southern Somerset County town earlier this month and surveyed the almost knee-deep snow before him.

While neighbors used shovels, snowblowers and snowplows to clear sidewalks, driveways and street parking spaces, Duchene reached for two plastic boxes and a shovel to convert his snow-blanketed property into a high-rise igloo.

"When you get this much snow, you have to make the most of it," the veteran igloo builder said, smiling. "It's really a great way to get out and do something instead of hibernating in the house."

Duchene, 51, who works in the banquet department at the Westin Convention Center Pittsburgh, built his first igloo after the "Blizzard of the Century" dumped about 2-feet of snow on Western Pennsylvania in March of 1993. The second igloo arose from the remnants of a heavy snowfall in early 2003.

As he waded into the snow, he was greeted by his construction crew -- Peg Seidel, 56; her daughter Molly Hunt, 33; and her grandson, Zane Hunt, 7, all of Confluence. They later were joined by Gage Turney, 14, also of Confluence. Duchene's wife Wendy kept everyone going with hot chocolate and peanut butter cookies.

After using the shovel to flatten about 100 square feet of snow to form a relatively level foundation, Duchene demonstrated how to pack snow into the plastic boxes to form 18 by 12 by 10-inch building blocks.

"It's amazing how much snow it takes to make them," he said, "and you really have to pack it in there."

An assembly line of sorts took shape. Boxes were piled high with snow, patted down firmly with the shovel, carefully emptied on to a sled and slowly pulled to the construction site. Zane occasionally plopped his 50-pound frame on a box to make sure it was packed solid.

Duchene gingerly lifted each block from the sled and placed it into position.

"They're very delicate because they're made out of powder snow," he said. "You have to handle them with a light touch so they don't crumble. They'd be easier to make and handle if the snow had more moisture in it."

Gage said working on his first igloo was "pretty cool." He watched as Duchene placed the first row of blocks in a circle and then angled each subsequent row slightly inward and toward the center.

"It takes longer than you think because you don't want them to fall in," Gage said. "You have to take your time."

As word of the project spread, neighbors stopped to take photos and offer words of encouragement.

Seidel, a no-nonsense occupational therapist, reminded her co-workers to use "proper body mechanics" when shoveling snow.

"Don't lift and twist," said the native of Kalamazoo. "I'm a Michigan child and no stranger to igloos. I helped some neighbor kids build one in our backyard when I was in seventh grade. It was a lot of fun. It was about 5 feet in diameter. We put some candles in there and hung a tarp over the door. We wanted to build a fire inside it, but my mother didn't think it was safe."

Although the temperatures was in the teens, Molly Hunt said it was "surprisingly warm" inside the tall but uncapped igloo. "It really blocks the wind."

During a lunch break, she took her soaked son home and put everything but him in the dryer.

"His clothing was really wet," she laughed.

Duchene borrowed a stepladder to place the higher blocks, let the structure "settle" for a week and finished it last week. He put an American flag on the top and bow-tie bunting above the door. He said a few deep-freeze, slight-thaw cycles will "really solidify it.

"Everyone did a great job," he said, as he surveyed the finished project that has the appearance of a snow-covered teepee.

How long will it last? With a winter like this, at least until Easter.

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