January 8, 2013

Daniel Gray, from New Zealand, with the help of his girlfriend Kathleen Starrie her parents and a neighbour built a multi-coloured igloo in Starrie's backyard in Edmonton Alta. Photo supplied by Daniel Gray

EDMONTON - Encouraged by his girlfriend’s mother, a New Zealand man spent his Christmas building a colourful igloo in Edmonton.

Home for the holidays from her studies at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, Kathleen Starrie brought her Kiwi boyfriend Dan Gray to stay with her family.

Starrie’s mother decided to put Dan’s civil engineering studies to a test while teasing him that if he wanted her daughter’s hand in marriage, he needed to construct a real igloo out of ice blocks. The result was astounding.

“It’s beautiful, what the kids came up with,” said Brigid Burton, Starrie’s mother.