A New Zealand man who has spent the past five weeks in Edmonton found a unique way to spend his time.
一个新西兰小伙儿在过去的五周里，在加拿大的埃德蒙顿以一种特别的方式打发了时间。

Daniel Gray and his girlfriend Kathleen Starrie came to Edmonton from New Zealand to spend the holidays with Starrie's family. Never in a million years did Gray think he'd end up spending his time building an igloo.
丹尼尔-格雷和女友凯瑟琳-斯达丽从新西兰来埃德蒙顿与凯瑟琳的家人一起度假。丹尼尔肯定绝对没有想到，他的时间会都花来建造一个冰屋。

"My girlfriend's mother had a brilliant idea of building an igloo and thought it would keep me busy, away from her daughter in some respect," said Gray.
格雷笑谈道：“我女朋友的妈妈有一个特别聪明的主意，她让我建一个冰屋，这样我就会特别忙，就没有时间一直缠着凯瑟琳了。”

"I wanted to keep him occupied, not with my daughter necessarily. I wanted to keep him busy with something else," Starrie's mother Brigid Burton said with a laugh, "I didn't want (Dan) to just be twiddling his thumbs while he's here in Canada."
凯瑟琳的妈妈布丽吉德-伯顿大笑着说道：“我想让他有事做，这样肯定就没空一直跟我女儿在一起，我得让他忙点别的。我不想让丹尼尔来一趟加拿大就闲着什么都不做。”

"It's pretty typical. I wasn't really too shocked," Starrie said of her mother's request. "It wasn't presented as an optional thing," she added with a laugh.
凯瑟琳说自己对妈妈的要求一点不感到惊讶，“这绝对是我妈妈会做出来的事情，而且这不是你说愿不愿意的事儿，必须得做。”

Preparation on the igloo began months ago. Anticipating the couple's visit, Burton started collecting milk cartons in October, filling them with coloured water and freezing them to make ice blocks. "You need to collect hundreds of cartons, hundreds and hundreds of cartons," said Starrie.
做冰屋的准备活动其实几个月前就开始了。布丽吉德因为知道女儿和男朋友会来看他们，所以早早在十月份就开始收集牛奶盒，把有颜色的水灌到牛奶盒中去，然后冷冻它们制成冰砖。凯瑟琳说：“这可得收集好多好多的牛奶盒，超多的。”

And so the construction began. The couple, along with help from Starrie's parents and a neighbour, spent five days building the giant ice structure in the Burtons' backyard. Much of the work was done during Edmonton's cold snap, when the temperature hovered around the -25 degree mark.
彩虹冰屋的建造工程就这样开始了，丹尼尔和凯瑟琳，再加上凯瑟琳的父母和一位邻居的帮忙，五个人花了五天的时间在凯瑟琳家的后院里建造了这个巨大的冰屋。当时的埃德蒙顿气温低至零下25度，大部分的工作都是在严寒的天气下完成。

"We kind of prepared well and went to the store and got some toe warmers and hand warmers and all of that and just dressed warmly. We'd only work for about two hours maximum at a time, and then go inside and warm up," explained Gray.
丹尼尔解释道：“我们的准备工作做的还是挺充分的，我们去商店买了一些暖脚器和暖手宝，大家都穿得非常厚非常暖和，我们每天最多只工作两小时，然后就进屋去暖和一下。”

While it started as a bit of a tedious job, the engineer grew to enjoy the job. "Once I started building it, it was something I just really wanted to finish, because you can't just leave something like that unfinished," said Gray.
一开始可能是有些枯燥的工作，但做着做着这位工程师也爱上了这个工作。“开始建冰屋以后，我就特别想好好完成它，因为这样的东西，你真的不想半途而废。”

In total, the group spent about 150 hours carefully putting about 500 ice blocks together, one by one, to build the colourful igloo.
这个团队一共花了150个小时，仔细地将500块冰砖一块块地放到了一起，终于建成了这个彩虹冰屋。

"I thought we'd just take the bricks of ice and just kind of, almost throw them out there and make an igloo," Burton said with a hearty laugh."(It was) a lot more difficult, truly."
准岳母布丽吉德也坦诚这个工作比她想得要难得多：“我开始以为我们只要拿着冰砖，扔到那里就能造一个冰屋。” 布丽吉德大笑着说道。

But, it appears there's now a bit of a different tune to Burton's motives. "The reason that she's given since she decided it was such a big job was that she would allow me to marry her daughter, so I guess I've accomplished that," Gray said.
不过丹尼尔的辛苦没有白费，布丽吉德的态度也发生了转变。“当凯瑟琳的妈妈意识到这是个大工程的时候，她就决定如果我完成了，就让我跟凯瑟琳结婚，我成功的做到了。”

"(I said) to Dan, you know if you want my daughter's hand you have to complete this, and he did it!" Burton added.
布丽吉德说：“我对丹尼尔说，你要是想娶我女儿，你就得把这个做完，而他真的做到了！”

Although the couple has been together for nearly four years, it doesn't appear as though Gray and Starrie are in any rush to tie the knot.
不过虽然丹尼尔和凯瑟琳在一起有差不多四年了，他们也并没有急着要结婚。