You are welcome to come and stay with us tonight if you want to experience -46C feels like? ;) The coldest I ever experienced was in 1996 when it was -35C for two weeks with dead calm air. But when the air mass moved out, the winds picked up and for two days we experienced -75C/-103F. That was a brutal cold wind and nothing moved for two days. I will never forget that experience.

I agree with you regarding the earthship. Where we live, it cannot maintain room temperature by itself in these temperatures, but no question in my mind it is the safest building to live in, especially in this environment. Considering it does all it's work passively, if all else failed, the building would still protect us from these extremes. It may not be 'comfortable', but it would be survivable! They are amazing buildings, no doubt in my mind. The fact that they also keep our water from freezing is astounding as well. The tops of our tanks are exposed to the air and we can still draw water from the tanks even at these temperatures. Astounding!