Canadian company aims to make winter fun safer for children

Who hasn’t jumped into the snow after a huge snowfall to build an epic fort or igloo?

Although it’s one of the great joys of winter, most of us lack the skills to actually build a proper igloo, let alone one that won’t collapse on itself.

A Canadian company is hoping to change that while making playing in the snow safer for kids.

Eric Villiard, founder of the Play Snow Igloo — a plastic grid-shaped igloo template that you just add snow to —  said he wanted to offer families worry-free fun outdoors.

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Villiard said it was a bad experience of his own that eventually led him to create the structure.

“I was 10 years old and I was building myself an igloo and it collapsed on me,” he said. “Luckily my father was watching me. He came running out the door to dig me out.”

It took another 30 years before he remembered the incident and acted upon it.

“I have two kids, two small boys… and when I started playing outside with them — flashback,  I didn’t want to do this.”

The product was two-years in the making including the design process, but Villiard is hoping to get it off the ground with a Kickstarter campaign.