>>Being flatlanders, when we built our house back home, we used the soil dug from the basement to build a little hill in the yard, almost a meter high. Even that much would propel a sled some six meters, when the snow was right. Though, we didn't build it as fast as we hoped, so it wasn't in time for the second daughter - but she nevertheless enjoyed it together with the third (who is 9 years younger :).
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>You mean you moved the spoil twice - once when digging, then later to build the slope?

Not really, it was done at once. For most of the soil we had a ramp upon which we could run a wheelbarrow, so at some point my unloading spot became the hill building spot :). But you're partially right - once we had to throw the ramp out as well, I had to shovel it right out of the pit, but then the hill is adjacent to it, so the extra move was just one shovel throw away.

>I don't understand - it was in time for the 1st but not for the 2nd?

When we started digging the basement, the first daughter was 7, and the second was three. So we figured we'd move in in a couple of years and the girls will have fun in the winter. But then it took us ten years to make the house habitable, and when we moved in the girls were 14, 10 and 1 year old. We lived there only six years, and then moved here.

The basement is not under the house - it's behind it, so its roof is actually a terrace, and a huge one (9 by 4 meters), so when I shovel all the snow off it, it makes a nice igloo :).