Eagan man builds giant backyard snow fort
EAGAN, Minn. – The first day of spring is a little more than two weeks away. But kids in Eagan are hoping the winter weather lasts a bit longer than that.
An Eagan man has constructed a giant snow fort in his backyard, which has become its own community.
Brian Anderson has been a fan of snow his entire life. But being a dad has taken it to a whole other level.
"I'm kind of a snow engineer now I guess, just by trial and error," Anderson said. "I started building kind of snow igloos in the back of the yard a couple years ago, and they evolved into multiple snow forts, and it became like a village."
This year's fort is more than 5-feet tall and 30-feet wide, growing in his backyard almost nonstop since the first snow of the season in November, and every snowfall since.
"They know what we're gonna do next, which is get the shovels and start going to town," he said. "After school a lot of days, I mean, there will be six, seven kids out here and I'll be helping out. And usually they'll help for about three minutes and then I'll be working for half an hour [laughs]!"
What started as a fun project in his backyard now requires blueprints, unlocking both Anderson and the children's creativity.
"We have 10 different rooms. We have two different hallways kinda going just down the sides of it. We've got windows in each room into the hallways. We have two different slides, and each kid has their own room with their own window," he said.
And while it's fun inside the fort, Anderson says the connections can be seen outside of it, too.
"I want there to be a little neighborhood unity in the winter time. The kids have so much fun in the summer playing with everybody. Winter, you just forget who your neighbors are, you forget who your friends are, and this was a way to bring people out," he said.
Anderson says his previous forts have stayed up until May before collapsing. But, of course, that all depends on Mother Nature.