The Deep North is buried under heavy snow, and the game will block you with a “Snow is too deep” warning the moment you try to lay a foundation. The Snow Shovel is the tool that fixes this. It digs through the drifts, exposes the ground underneath, and clears frost that blizzards dump on your buildings.
Quick answer: Craft the Snow Shovel at a Level 3 Black Forge using 5x Finewood, 4x Flametal, and 2x Embers. The recipe unlocks once you collect Embers from an Eternal Pyre, which requires defeating Fader, the Ashlands boss.
Unlock the recipe with the Eternal Pyre and Embers
The Snow Shovel recipe should appear on its own after you update to the 1.0 version. If it does not show up in the Black Forge menu, you need Embers to trigger it, and Embers only come from an Eternal Pyre.
The Eternal Pyre was added with the Deep North update and works like the Mistlands Wisp Fountain. It periodically attracts Embers that you pick up by hand. To build one, you first have to defeat Fader, the main boss of the Ashlands, who drops the Fader relic. Combine the relic with Stone at a Stonecutter to place the Pyre.
Tip: Place the Eternal Pyre outdoors so the wind keeps its flames burning. The Embers that spawn around it move quickly and can be hard to target, so wave your cursor over them until the pickup prompt appears. Collecting an Ember unlocks the Snow Shovel recipe.
Snow Shovel crafting recipe and materials
Once the recipe is available, head to a Level 3 Black Forge and craft the tool. Here is what you need and where each material comes from.
| Material | Amount | How to get it |
|---|---|---|
| Finewood | 5 | Chop down Birch and Oak trees in the Meadows and Plains. |
| Flametal | 4 | Smelt Flametal Ore in a Blast Furnace; mine the ore from veins in the Ashlands. |
| Embers | 2 | Collect from an Eternal Pyre built after defeating Fader. |
Finewood is common and easy to stockpile early. Flametal takes more effort because you have to reach the Ashlands, mine the ore, and process it in a Blast Furnace. Embers are the gating material, since they depend entirely on the Eternal Pyre.
How to use the Snow Shovel to clear snow
You know it worked when the “Snow is too deep” prompt no longer appears and the game lets you snap a foundation piece to the ground you just cleared.
Building a base before you have the shovel
The Deep North sits on the opposite side of the map from the Ashlands, so you can reach it without clearing the fiery biome first. The catch is that the Snow Shovel needs Embers, and Embers need Fader. Until then, you can still set up a rough shelter using a couple of workarounds.
- Repurpose abandoned buildings. Place a Workbench to tear down an existing structure and build your own foundation on the cleared spot.
- Use a Hoe to level ground from the inside out, turning small snow patches into dry land. Raising the ground also works, though it can create uneven terrain.
- Put a temporary roof over your Workbench first, then start leveling and laying your foundation from there.
Note: Deep North snowstorms destroy the roof of nearly every building you make. The one exception is the abandoned town hall, which makes it a strong pick for your main base since you won’t have to keep repairing the roof, and it gives easy access to the Winding Tunnels.
The Snow Shovel remains the cleaner long-term solution, so getting through the Ashlands and building an Eternal Pyre should be an early priority once you settle into the frozen north. With it in hand, clearing space for a permanent base takes only a few swings.
