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architecture in the circumpolar regions
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Historical Atlas of the Arctic. p6 Derek Hayes. Douglas & McIntyre,Vancouver/Toronto, 2003
contributors Chris Allen Pétur Armannsson Graham Ashford Michael Barton Gwen Boyle Bjorn Otto Braaten Robert Bromley William Brooks Joe Ferraro
publisher The association for non-profit architectural fieldwork [Alberta]
Tracey Mactavish Mike Mense Becky Messier Harriet Burdett Moulton
guest editor Tracey Mactavish on site review editor Stephanie White
Ove Neumann Gavin Renwick Stephen Robinson Petra Sattler-Smith Tom Strickland Don Taylor Simon Taylor Bill Waechter Byron White Stephanie White Antonio Zedda
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Stephen Christer Stephen Fancott Aleta Fowler Studio Granda David Hernandez Quintela Florian Jungen
issue 11 spring 2004
the architecture of the circumpolar region
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Calgary Alberta Canada T2G 0Z5
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real places — becky messier’s greenhouse Yellowknife
Klinik HIgh School Cambridge Bay Nunavut
11
stephanie white
gavin renwick
Contents
antonio zedda
northern nature B ecky M essier : Becky’s greenhouse, NWT G raham A shford : Banks Island A ntonio Z edda : Being Boreal in the Yukon B jorn O tto B raaten : 70ºN ,Tromsø, Norway C hris A llen : Finnish Wood Culture F lorian J ungen : Eskasoni, Cape Breton, NS M anoo : Polar Cube G wen B oyle : Excepts from an Arctic Journal northern responses T om S trickland : On being a northern country, an interview with Adrienne Clarkson T racey M actavish : Northern Towns G avin R enwick : Gameti Ko, NWT northern occupation
4 14 16 18 21 24
pétur armannsson
graham ashford
gwen boyle
chris allen
6
8 11
byron white
26 27
northern living
adrienne clarkson
stephen robinson
tom strickland
H arriet B urdett M oulton : Iqaluit Greenhouse A leta F owler : Houseboats in Yellowknife NWT B yron W hite : Bush Camp R obert G B romley and S tephen F ancott : Wha Ti, NWT S imon T aylor : Traill’s End,Yellowknife, NWT
28 30 33 34
37
mike mense
northern buildings
simon taylor
joe ferraro and bill brooks
T racey M actavish : Northern Detail T racey M actavish : Northern Firms: Ferguson Simek Clark Pin/Taylor Kobayashi Zedda Architects Full Circle Architecture P etra S attler -S mith : Kotlik,Alaska S teve C hrister : Valhalla, Iceland
40 43
52 54 56 59 60 62
harriet burdett moulton
david hernandez quintela
P etur A rmannsson : Bifrost, Nordudalur, Iceland KHRAS : Swimming pool at Nuuk, Greenland KHRAS : Nature Institute, Nuuk. M ichael B arton : Northern building perspectives
tracey mactavish
70ºN
northern technology
M ike M ense : Northern Architecture: form folows latitude S tephen R obinson : Building on permafrost B ill W aechter : Drifting snow J oseph F erraro and W illiam B rooks : Green at the South Pole D on T aylor : Architecture of British Antarctic Survey Stations
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the camera shy aleta fowler and boris
stephen fancott and robert bromley
66 68 73
74
northern background S tephanie W hite :Two good books
78
michael barton
don taylor
bill waechter
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minutes before we were to go on somewhere else. People were reading and the books could be taken off the shelf, it was a working, welcoming library.We need buildings like this ourselves.We need a concentrated attempt to make the North something different, for us. I think our archi- tects that we went with, Saucier, Erickson, Shim and Sutcliff all realized this, meeting their counterparts in every place we went to. Tom Strickland : Do you feel that a place like Finland has been more open to the North, culturally and politically, and as a result has allowed that frontier to become a part of them, their idea about democracy, their ideas about living, about building cities? Adrienne Clarkson : I observe, as Governor-General, that when I travel in the North it is essentially, deeply Canadian, it is not a differ- ent country. I felt that from the first time I flew down the MacKenzie River in 1971. I felt it deeply. People there feel that they are Canadian, feel that they are part of Canada. We must make the South understand that.There is tremendous ignorance about the North, unfortunately, and sometimes a willful turning away from it. Often it’s as simple as feeling that it’s very expensive to go there. It’s not that expensive nor is it that far to places like Iqaluit — it’s only three and a half hours from Ottawa, but it doesn’t have its place in the imagination. I think in terms of political culture the North is doing just fine. But you can’t import southern models of buildings to a northern place and expect them to work, it can’t be. We must depend upon architects, town planners and environmentalists to develop a model that will make our cities, our towns in the North speak to the place itself. I’m not an architect but I’m always interested in innovation and the way architects use different kinds of materials. In the last couple of Governor Gen- eral’s Awards for Architecture, at least half of the architects are very concerned with having environmental buildings that don’t eat up energy, giving nothing back. I think that is the model we’re going to have to go to in the North. Tom Strickland :Thank you for clearing up the idea that it is not as much a political issue as it is one of the imagination. Adrienne Clarkson : Oh, I think that’s totally true. I think that sometimes people use the political question as an excuse for not dealing with where people are actually living, with how they make their day- to-day lives, how they make choices.You want to have a building which, although streamlined and not expensive, is a vernacular known to the North. You don’t want people to go into strange kinds of shapes but you want them to be able to use buildings to free themselves. If you’re concerned with the fact that a lot of kids leave school after grade 10, how can you make schools interesting and challenging so that there are spaces that people want to learn in. How do you develop facilities for sport? How do you deal with the fact that there is twilight for months at a time? How do you deal with the fact that there is daylight for three months of the year — all day long? Canada could be a leader in this — I think we have a wonderful body of architects, I watched their work even before I became Governor-General, when I did the prefaces for the awards and always looked at the finalists as well as the people who won. I think architecture is the way in which you can actually make it possible to live in our climate.That’s what I tried to get across in our a s Governor General, my going to the North draws attention to the fact that: a) it exists, b) it is extremely important for Canadians to realize that they are a Northern country. Otherwise, you pretend that the greater part of your country is not there and you live in denial about your real identity. We are a northern people. I want us to think of how we relate to the countries that share the same latitudes as we do — latitude, because of the effect it has on climate and character. Longitude is for adventure and discovery, but latitude is for living.
On being a northern country an interview with Adrienne Clarkson, Governor General of Canada
Tom Strickland
Tom Strickland : Awareness of the ‘other’, in this case the North, in nar- rative, place and culture is something that was emphasized during the State Visit to the circumpolar countries. Openness to this diversity has important implications for architecture. In Canada the value of this diversity has yet to be translated to urban and rural planning which are still influenced by the South. Canada has opened its political culture to diversity with the creation of Nunavut, however, at this place in our history does Canadian culture truly reflect the North? Adrienne Clarkson : With Nunavut as the newest territory, Iyujivik in northern Quebec with its distinct identity, the Northwest Territories and Yukon we have an identity and a diversity which is not Southern and never has been.The North its always been our frontier. It is the place where we push boundaries. Tom Strickland : Is the North the frontier in other circumpolar coun- tries or did you find places in which the North is an integrated part of their national identity? Adrienne Clarkson : In the three countries that we went to, Russia, Finland and Iceland, the North plays a different kind of role. Russia’s North is Siberia which has, for two to three hundred years, been a place of exile. For example, in 1826 the Decembrists, who were an aristo- cratic group rebelling against the Czarists, were transported to Siberia where they lived for the rest of their lives. People stayed there because there wasn’t such a thing as coming back .There was no train that would take them back to Moscow or St. Petersburg, Novgorod or Kiev.The governor of Salekhard (a place in the Arctic Circle that we went to visit — an enormously booming gas town) was born there. His parents were in the Gulag that we had visited. When released they moved to the nearest little town.That’s the story of the habitation in the Russian North, people moved there against their will and had to stay —this cre- ates a distinctive kind of society. With their wealth they have built very interesting buildings, in brick, in concrete block, even stone.We have not yet developed such a distinctive architecture. I think we could, the Nunavut Legislative Assembly is a very good start, as is the Legislative Assembly in Yellowknife. We have to take into account the different temperatures in all our dif- ferent Norths. What’s different about Northern Finland (we went right to the north to Inari which is the centre of Sámi culture) is that they have the Gulf Stream around the top of Finland. At the same latitude as Yellowknife, or even Tutoyaktuk, they can still grow wheat, they herd their reindeer and don’t actually live a totally nomadic life. They have trees that are anywhere from six to eight feet tall — our tree line is much farther south than that. So a different culture has evolved there, still a culture of the North, but not what we would call a First Nations culture. Then there is Iceland, which is between 8º and 14ºC all year round . Ice- land’s ability to survive as a society, from Viking times, is due to the Gulf Stream.They have very little snow compared to Ottawa or Montreal, very little snow. Instead they have hot springs and a different kind of feeling. In Finland, you get wonderful architecture. In Rovaniemi you have the library of Alvar Alto which is a landmark building, just an extraordinary place.With our delegates we landed there to have a little tour fifteen
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Nunavut Commissioner Peter Irniq performs an Inuit drum dance at a Quest for the Modern North seminar at the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland.
northern trips, that we share a climate with other countries, and what lessons they have learned we could learn. What lessons we have already implemented, they could implement. I think that our social and political constructs interpenetrate in that way. Tom Strickland : Your point is very clear that the challenges in the North can be as pragmatic and everyday as the challenges of lighting. In meeting those challenges we will learn a lot about Canada as a northern country. Adrienne Clarkson : What’s interesting is we talk all the time about being challenged in Canada, by our climate, our geography and the kind of nation that we are, which is an immigrant nation built on an aboriginal foundation.The North brings us back to our aboriginal foundation all the time. If the buildings all disappeared the Inuit could still live there as they have always lived there. Anyone who has been there the number of times I have been and seen somebody build an igloo out of a north-fac- ing slope of snow in twenty minutes knows that they know something about shelter and design.The design of an igloo is utterly wonderful, done with one instrument, just the snow knife — it’s a marvel to behold. If a blizzard is coming and there are two people hunting they can build that igloo and get out of the blizzard.We think of it as survival architec- ture, but it is actually highly sophisticated architecture, a perfect blend of function and necessity.We have to learn how to do that for the kind of constructions that we do now, using all the materials of the world, artificial or natural, that we have access to. Tom Strickland : This is a key point — learning from the challenge of our climate rather than trying to resist it, or finding something other than it. Adrienne Clarkson : We are very interested in this in our personal lives.We built an ecologically complete set of buildings on an island
in Georgian Bay where there is no electricity or sewage system. You do not have to have a septic tank that has to be pumped out by some boat going around doing the pumping. People say to me,‘How do you do dishes?’ I say,‘Well you do dishes by putting two large pasta pots on your stove, heating water and that will wash your dishes, surpris- ingly enough’. For general hot water we have a solar panel that pumps water to the sink and then we have an outdoor composting toilet, which makes wonderful compost within about three weeks. You can live like this. It’s not a hobby, it’s not a joke. In a strict environment where there is only two inches of top soil and you’ve got 116 trees and all of them could be blown over in a big west wind, you want to make sure that you are at one with whatever technologies you have that do not destroy the environment. Tom Strickland : It’s a matter of making the effort. Adrienne Clarkson :That’s right. In a situation like that you do have water, which is clean, all around you with a minimum amount of filtering, but the lesson is there which is to learn how to live in this environment. Tom Strickland :Thank you very much Your Excellency. Adrienne Clarkson : You’re very welcome Tom. It’s nice to talk to you and good luck with the magazine, it’s a good one.
Tom Strickland is an architect working in Calgary for Zeidler Carruthers. This interview took place in March 2004 in response to the Governor-General’s tour of the circumpolar region. Writers, artists, architects, musicians accompanied the Governor-General.
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Rae-Edzo, NT 1970 Rae-Edzo are twin communities, their hyphenation the result of a relocation project initiated by the Government of Canada and inherited by the Government of the Northwest Territories in 1970. In the 1960s health problems and a number of deaths in Rae linked to poor sanita- tion caused alarm amongst government officials. Local papers portrayed the poor water quality, drainage and housing conditions of a northern ghetto. Action was taken to move the community to the Edzo site where soil was favourable for underground piping and drainage, and access to the main highway provided ease of servicing. Fed eral and territorial government officials, consultants and specialists consulted the community which expressed health concerns but also spoke of a desire to stay near their fishing boats and of the significance of the geographic and historic location of Rae for the Dogrib people. Nonetheless officials felt that they had received local endorsement to move the community, and the infrastructure of Edzo was constructed. The majority of the population of Rae did not move to Edzo and remain, as they traditionally have, on the rocky point on Marion Lake. Children were bussed to the new school in Edzo until a government freeze on infrastructure in Rae was lifted and education and health facilities were built to meet the needs of Rae residents.Today Rae-Edzo functions logistically as one hamlet, Edzo primarily as an enclave of non- native teachers and government workers with a combined population of about 1860 people. Edzo is 24 kilometres down highway No. 3 from Rae (6 km by boat or ice road) on a water channel that connects Marion Lake to the North Arm of Great Slave Lake. In contrast to the subur- ban planning model applied to the design of Edzo and recent growth of Rae, smoke houses, lean-to structures and traditional lodges pop up in side yards between houses illustrating the human ability to improvise in foreign environments.With the recent signing of Dogrib Treaty 11 the town of Rae will continue to be the growing hub of Dogrib settlement. Existing patterns of adaptation provide cues for new planning develop-
Canada North: new towns Tracey Mactavish
i n the Canadian Arctic today most permanent communities are new towns. Before the 1950s settlements were trading posts and the seasonal camps of a nomadic culture. Camp sites were based on their proximity to water, prevailing winds, patterns of animal movement and their cultural significance as traditional gathering areas and places of exchange. Camp formation was often by family grouping. Shelters were oriented with their back to the wind, their face to the sun and the water’s edge near by. After 1950, settlements as we now know them were created by the Government of Canada to simplify the administration of health, welfare and education services. Location was based on ease of access (by air or overland) and by terrain and soil condi- tions conducive to economical building services. Community form was the result of the systematic application of modern plan- ning ideals; single linear lots sized for fire separation, detached dwellings and a gridiron layout underpinned by an engineering culture. A number of relocation and new town projects from this period are comparable in their varied success and failure.The debris of northern development history, the constructed reality of these communities is our platform for change, evidence that the design of built form must understand and reflect the relationship of northern people to place.
right above: Government row right: Chief Jimmy Bruno School in Edzo
map from the Rae-Edzo community plan.
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ment. Resolute Bay, NU 1953 & 1973
In 1953 four Inuit families were relocated by the Government of Canada from Inukjuak on the east coast of Hudson’s Bay and from Pond Inlet on the northern tip of Baffin Island to the shore of Cornwallis Island. Reso - lute Bay at that time consisted of an air strip and a military base. Initially no effort was made by government to build infrastructure or housing. The first Inuit settlement was located on the shore four miles south of the airport, segregated from the military base and built by the Inuit themselves with salvaged lumber. Government-sponsored housing was introduced in the late 1960s.A lifestyle developed that included both life on the land and sporadic wage employment at the base. Petroleum and mineral exploration in the 1970s brought money and people to Resolute, promising growth and status as an arctic destina- tion. In 1973 the Government of the Northwest Territories decided that a new town was needed for a projected population of 1200 people. Community objectives, stated in the project brief, were for a well- equipped, socially integrated community with sufficient physical protec - tion from the harsh climate. Ralph Erskine, a Scottish architect based in Sweden and experienced in arctic community design, was hired to develop a town plan for Resolute. Climate profiles for a number of sites were developed, examining solar radiation, temperature, wind, precipitation and existing patterns of snow drifting. Site and community form were analysed through extensive com- munity consultation and, by consensus, the new site was located on the south face of Signal Hill up-slope from the town lake where increased sun and protection from the prevailing north wind were obvious advan- tages. Planned was a perimeter building of dwellings, hotel, town centre and nursing station with a commercial administration and recreation complex sitting at the highest elevation and sheltering interior clusters of single family houses from wind and snow drifting. Service access and industrial uses were delegated to the periphery. Existing houses and structurally sound buildings were relocated to the new town site, but new construction was abandoned shortly after the first townhouses were completed. Resolute has not yet reached its projected population and the current community of approximately 200 sits on the south face of the hill loosely grouped in a semblance of the early vision. For more on the 1953 high arctic relocation see Relocating Eden:The Image of Political Exile in the Canadian Arctic by Alan R. Marcus. For more on the Resolute plan see Resolute Bay, New Town, Cornwallis Island, NWT, Canada, a project brief by Ralph Erskine Architect & Planner.
above: Erskine’s Town Plan below: the only part of the plan that was built, a townhouse row bottom: Resolute, 2003
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‘Aklavik to Be Moved’ 23 December 1953, Edmonton Journal Aklavik lies in the Mackenzie delta on the west channel of the Mack- enzie River. Originally the settlement was the meeting place of the Gwich’in and local Inuvialuit and was a centre for the muskrat fur trade. Silty soil, susceptibility to flooding, erosion of the river banks and the lack of suitable land for population expansion and for the development of an airstrip were characteristics that did not support the political vision for a northern administrative, education, transportation and shipping centre and that justified, for the Government of Canada, a new town site. After extensive evaluation of possible town sites East Three was selected on the east bank of the Mackenzie River 58km east of Aklavik, far from existing trap lines and the seasonal cariboo hunt. Half of the population of Aklavik relocated to this new site, which became Inuvik, now a thriving regional centre of 3500 people.The hamlet of Aklavik, with 750 residents, continues to exist in its original location with a traditional land-based economy. The construction of Inuvik was viewed as a pilot study of what it would take to build a modern northern town with all of the amenities of a southern centre. Infrastructure was paramount, with the construction of roads, pilings for buildings and a network of above ground utilidors that connect every facility to an umbilical cord of building services.The utilidor reinforces the engineered character of the town in contrast to its natural surroundings and limits pedestrian movement and modifica - tion of the space between buildings. Little design attention has been given to building orientation, the creation of sheltered outdoor space or the establishment of a community centre. Built in just over five years, Inuvik’s boom town quality is not unique to the Canadian arctic.
far into the bay. The success of Erskine’s plan, had the population arrived to support it, is debatable.Traditionally, the gathering of people into physical groupings is a natural process driven by common interest or advantage, where communities evolve over time as local priorities and objectives changed. Instant communities embody the thinking of a spe- cific time period in their inability to respond to a human dimension that is not finite and that, in the case of the Aklavik and Rae-Edzo relocation projects, was originally ill-defined. What the Resolute New Town project offers to future community development is the model of Erskine’s design approach. Currently the political and social climate is shifting as self-government and local control of infrastructure becomes reality for many communities. Opportunity exists to develop alternatives that are less foreign to a northern con- text, that are incremental, better suited to the environment and more supportive of the values of its people. Change requires leadership and courage at a community level supported by government and by design professionals. Planning and design of the recent past have muddied the palette, but the day will come when the fabric of our northern commu- nities will reveal an essential, colourful understanding of the physical and social context of our northern realm.
Of the projects here, Resolute Bay is the only community where all residents of the original settlement relocated. It has a small population, close proximity of the new settlement to the old and was formed by the extensive consultation process as to location and town form, led by an architect with skill in design and community planning. Members of the community see both good and bad in the siting, noting the muddy conditions in spring and the inability to sight whales from a location so
Inuvik utilidor, and other details
Tracey Mactavish developed this survey of Northern towns as part of a larger study (see pp 40-51, this issue), with the assistance of the Canada Council.
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The summer of 1990 was spent travelling through central Europe with an experimental architecture project called ‘Whaur Extremes Meet’.This involved constructing a ‘debating chamber’ in seven cities, most of which were in that immedi- ate transitory state that follows revolution. For many people in locations such as Prague this structure became a utilitarian symbol performing part of their transformative activity.The intention of such architecture was not so much a question of liberating form as liberating people.
House, homeland, self-determination: the Gameti Ko project, NWT
Gavin Renwick
j oseph Beuys declared that culture relates to freedom because cul- ture implies freedom. Vaclav Havel said that ‘because of the materialistic and science based nature of modern civilisation, culture … has been taken out of context, robbed of its broader and deeper meaning.’ There was a time when culture was scarcely ever mentioned as a separate sphere of human activity.The reason for this was simple: culture was part of daily life.’ 1 In the Northwest Territories there is a major change in the socio- political landscape. After years of negotiation the Dogrib Dene may soon have self-government and their land claim settled — an extraor- dinary event of international importance. On Dogrib land culture is part of daily life — life is woven into the fabric of the whole day. On the land work is neither compressed into prescribed hours nor spatially isolated. The architecture of the bush does not spatially determine, or isolate, an activity. This illustrates the dichotomy between the western idea of house (as a spatial unit in the built environment) and the Dogrib idea of home . In western convention a ‘house is a physical unit that defines and delin - eates space for the members of a household. It provides shelter and protection for domestic activities’. This prevents the idea of a house being anything other than ‘a territorial core, [ rather than ] a complex entity that defines and is defined by cultural, socio-demographic, psy - chological, political and economic factors’ 2 Within Dogrib culture it is an oral tradition that links archaeologi- cal and cultural landscapes. Land use and occupancy are inextricably linked. Home is not contained but lived, and understood, as an expan- sive experience. Gameti elder, Romie Wetrade, says ‘When we say home it is as if the land is that home.This is why we worked hard and took care of our home.’ In the relationship between camp and land , spatial prepositions like in or out are superfluous, as both camp and land mean home . You are always on the land. Such a geographically expansive, domestic intimacy is not locked into a fixed place and illustrates the inextricable link between hearth and cosmos, home and world.
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Architecture has been a tool of assimilation in the Canadian North where the global shift from self-reliance to dependence on culturally inappropriate, and geographically distant, industrial processes has been particularly concentrated. Many people in the north have experienced ‘all or most of the variety of forms that we label modernisation’ 3 in less than a single lifetime. In 1970 the territorial government started construction of a new town, Edzo, on Dogrib land. 4 The intention was improvement, in government terms; in this case, the relocation of Rae, the largest Dogrib Dene community, away from the shores of Marion Lake to a land-bound township linked to the main north-south high- way. Conceived by a town planner from the south it had neatly rowed houses, cul-de-sacs, and open plan park areas. It was to be the show- piece of the north. Public officials, many of whom had technical back - grounds themselves and none of whom were Dogrib, were impressed. Everyone had the best of intentions. 5 One engineer subsequently criticised the applied science that under- pinned Edzo, particularly the assumed superiority over indigenous knowledge and lifestyle. Although Rae did have infrastructural prob- lems connected with a growing population, scant regard was paid to its historic resonance and sense of place. The reasons why a community might want to stay there were denied and a new town was built, even though ‘the public health and other related problems in Rae could have been solved at a substantially lower cost than that required to build Edzo’. 6 In Rae the original self-built log cabins were right on the lake and in kinship groups facing their particular region of Dogrib territory — the cabins did not segregate either home from homeland. Hunters still occupy these houses. Marion Lake itself gives direct access for canoe or sledge, boat or skidoo to the linked lakes and portages of the Idaa Trail — the historic highway across Dogrib land connecting the Great Slave and Great Bear Lakes. Here the traditionally expansive idea of home is sustained, the cabins conceived spatially and strategically in relation to homeland and family. For a decade the elders of Gameti, initially through the Dogrib Treaty 11 Traditional Knowledge Project, have documented traditional knowledge, skills and values. They feel it is now time to show how this knowledge is relevant to life in the twenty-first century — particularly to the Gameti youth — by working with their young people on a building project to renew the community. Chief Archie Wetrade says,‘In Dogrib Ko means home, this project has been created to document our view of the land as home and develop this traditional knowledge into a modern structure that has the same values.This way we remain strong like two people — in our traditions and in the modern world.’ Gameti Ko is now a community-based incorporated society with a board of three elders, two youth and two councillors. Tony Rabesca, responsible for community wellness, is the Gameti-based coordinator. Gavin Renwick is the overall project coordinator. From the beginning the project has been wholly controlled and developed within the com- munity. A workshop was recently held in Gameti, bringing together all interested parties and representatives from across the Dogrib home- land, to detail the project parameters and program. It was supported by two territorial government departments, Municipal and Community Affairs and the NWT Housing Corporation.The Diavik Communities Advisory Board also sponsored the event. The project will train youth in research methods, design and construc- tion, developing capacity and transferable skills.The elders of Gameti have promoted this project because of their belief in being strong like two people , thus working with and learning from the elders will be a part of the train- ing process being developed in association with Aurora College. The Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre is supporting an early phase of the project which aims to protect the built heritage of Gameti, in particular the remaining original cabins which will be designated as national heritage sites.
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1 Havel,Vaclav, 2004.‘The Culture of Enterprise’ Walrus , Feb./Mar. 2004. p38 2 Lawrence, Roderick J, 1987.‘What Makes a House a Home?’ Environment & Behavior , 19 (2) March 1987. pp154. 3 Lawrence, Roderick J ibid . 4 Pelto, Pertti. 1978.‘Ecology, Delocalisation and Social Change’. Consequences of Economic Change in the Arctic . Boreal Institute for Northern Affairs/University of Alberta, Edmonton. p32. 5 Ironically, the planned community, now largely occupied by whites (a proportion of whom work at the Edzo based school), is named after a great Dogrib leader, while Rae, the place with a history of aboriginal occupancy, is named after a Scot- tish fur trader, 6 Gamble, Donald J. 1986.‘Crushing of Cultures:Western Applied Science in Northern Societies’. Arctic , vol.39, No.1 (March 1986). p21. 7 Gamble, Donald J. 1986. ibid . p21.
Gavin Renwick is an A.H.R.B. Research Fellow in the Creative and Performing Arts at the School of Fine Art / Visual Research Centre, Duncan of Jor- danstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee, Scotland. A note from earlier this spring: ‘60 people have just arrived by skidoo from the community of Deline (Fort Franklin) to the North. Together with the 100 or so who have arrived by plane that doubles the size of the population of Gameti. The next few days should be fun’.
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The Changing Nature of Banks Island: Northwest Territories
Graham Ashford
i n Canada’s High Arctic, Inuit hunters and trappers have a close rela- tionship with the natural world. For countless generations they have crisscrossed the icy Beaufort waters in search of fish, game and geese. At latitude 73º north they met the shores of most western island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and named it Ikahuk, place where one crosses over. It is a crossing made for the last 3,500 years as resource- ful hunters have followed the seasons and the animals over the 70,028 square kilometers of what is now called Banks Island. Although the conditions are extreme, well-adapted wildlife flourishes on the tundra. For those who are resourceful, food and clothing are all around. Much has changed in recent years, sod huts have been replaced with modern houses, dog teams with snowmobiles and all terrain vehicles. Many houses have cable and internet service, yet the ancient elements of a life close to the land endure. Local people retain the traditional skills, knowledge and tastes of their ancestors.They travel widely over the island in pursuit of caribou, muskox, polar bears, fish, geese and other wildlife.They are accustomed to a migratory lifestyle where per- manent structures are absent, and they create comfort and companion- ship on the land in canvas tent communities near their favorite fishing and hunting spots.
When they return to their houses in Sachs Harbour, the island’s only permanent settlement, the distinction between indoors and outside is blurred. Nature seems to spill through every doorway. In the distance sled dogs bark in the wind, skins are stretched to dry on outside walls, geese are plucked on the kitchen table, and polar bears are fleshed on a tarp on the living room floor.The smell of country food enriches the air.There is a strong sense of community and a deep respect for age and acquired wisdom. On the surface it is a closely knit community responding, to the tech- nologies, lifestyles and values of our modern age. Beneath the surface however, significant change is underway.The core of the island, centuries old frozen earth, is melting.Around the town of Sachs Harbour it is causing building foundations to shift. Doors are crooked, windows fail to shut properly, and drywall is cracked. Sections of roads have collapsed. Near the steep shore coastal erosion is rapidly advancing as the banks collapse from melting permafrost and wave erosion. Families worry that their homes may not be habitable in coming years.Their concern is well founded, an entire inland lake recently drained into the ocean when its banks collapsed.
above: Roger Kuptana pulling in a net below: Sachs Harbour
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Sachs Harbour
The multi-year sea-ice is smaller and now drifts far from the community in the summer, taking with it the seals upon which the community relies for food. In the winter the sea-ice is thin and broken, making travel dangerous for even the most experienced hunters. In the fall, storms have become frequent and severe. New species of birds such as barn swallows and robins are arriving on the island. In the nearby waters, salmon have been caught for the first time. On the land, an influx of flies and mosquitoes are making life difficult for humans and animals. The traditional migration around the island has become more difficult in recent years as the earlier spring thaw saturates the ground with water, making skidoo travel difficult. Warmer weather has also resulted in the earlier breakup of many rivers over which the local people must travel. The risk of being stranded by open water is significant. As the warmer weather continues to alter the look and shape of what has always been familiar to them, the residents of Sachs Harbour wonder if they will be able to maintain their way of life. Rosemarie Kuptana puts it this way:“Who we are as Inuit are defined by a number of characteristics. Your culture, your language, your oral tradition, your geography, your laws, and when one of those traditional characteristics such as the ice going away and not coming back in the summertime, it affects what you eat. It affects your soul as a people. How can we pre- pare ourselves for such unpredictability? What will happen to us if we can no longer rely on our instincts and traditional wisdom?”
John Keogak, a longtime resident relates his concern:“I’d say 1987 we started noticing these mudslides, like pretty bad. Before it used to be a little sloughing from the snow left on the side of the banks. But now it’s the permafrost that’s coming down.And the ground being disturbed and more of the permafrost being exposed to the sun and the heat and the wind, now there’s more rain and the sun is shining all the time, warmer summer, earlier springs. Once this starts I don’t know what’s going to stop it. It doesn’t look good — for the community anyway. I think we’ll have to evacuate the community. Move somewhere else.” The signs of climate change are indeed all around, bearing out the sci- entific prediction that the Earth would warm more rapidly at the poles. Roger Kuptana, a local guide has seen it:“The freeze-ups are later. Like last year it must have been about a month and a half to two months later, freeze up.The winds are a lot stronger in the fall, like gale force winds.There is some thunderstorms, but I haven’t seen any this year. Last year there might have been one or two.There are a few thunder- storms.They are quite unusual for up here.You’re out on the land and you hear the thunder and the muskox would jump and they wouldn’t know which way to go. Each time you hear a thunder they will run one way and then run back.They just don’t know what to do.”
John Keogak inspecting coastal permafrost melting
For more information please see: http://www.iisd.org/climate/arctic/ sachs_harbour.asp
Graham Ashford is an Associate with the International Institute for Sustainable Development where he is responsible for helping com- munities to develop innovative and sustainable responses to natural resource management issues. He has led projects to understand and communicate the impacts of climate change in Canada’s Arctic, integrate aboriginal values into land use deci- sions in Manitoba, and assist poor farmers to rehabilitate watersheds in southern India.
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t he ubiquitous and fast-growing Trembling Aspen, populus tremuloides , stands still through the winter solstice. Even with its relatively short lifespan, it is a key colonising species of the vast boreal forest that covers much of the circumpolar region. Derek Johnson ( Plants of The Western Boreal Forest and Aspen Parkland ,1996) looks closely at the Trembling Aspen to show how it copes in an extreme environment with long winters.The greenish white colour of the bark indicates a photosynthetic layer. In late winter, while the tree’s leaves have yet to emerge, the bark has already begun to absorb and convert the sun’s energy into nutrients providing the tree with a longer growing season than would otherwise be possible.And when finally exposed to the long hours of intense summer sun, the tree produces a white powdery substance that acts as a sunscreen to protect the photosynthetic bark. In mid-March the Pasque Flower or Prairie Crocus, anemone patens , emerges from the snow . It comes from a hardy rootstock as a ball of fine woolly white hairs surrounding a hairy purple flower.The flower, a heliotrope, opens to catch the sun’s warmth during the day by following its arc across the sky.At night or during overcast weather it resumes its tight knit configuration of woolly hairs that trap warm air, reduce moisture loss and provide the insulation necessary to withstand cold evening temperatures. Meanwhile, as a means of protection from cold winter winds, a nearby willow ( genus salix ) blankets last year’s growth of tender shoots with a fur of fine white hairs. Being Boreal: trembling sticks, skins and a flower Antonio Zedda
Dwellings were simple, seasonal and gave protection from the harsh climate. Due to the ephemeral nature of the structures and mate- rials, no significant built artifacts remain.What we know of them is largely from documenta- tion and photography undertaken by Europe- ans who explored the territory in the mid to late 1800s. Though First Nations typically followed their source of food and thus led a nomadic exis- tence, it was not uncommon for permanent seasonal camps to be established, located on riverbanks (to harvest returning salmon), near migrating ungulates (caribou) or simply in areas where game was plentiful (moose, rabbit).The winter climate necessitated a more robust dwelling than was needed in the warmer seasons. Tappan Adney, in The Klondike Stampede of 1897-98 (1900) describes in detail the built form of the Klondike River Valley’s Tr’ondek Hwech’in people.Though considered one of the few Yukon First Nations to establish more permanent settlements, they also provide an example of seasonal building types common
Yukon First Nations had, until the first Europe - ans arrived, lived for thousands of years within the boreal forest of Canada’s most westerly territory.Though the climate and terrain were severe, the environment provided the neces- sary amenities for survival. Most First Nations were nomadic. Athapaskan and Tlingit moved with the seasons to different locations where sources of food were known to exist.
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i s the traditional knowledge and intimate understanding of the boreal forest ecosystem by the
Tr’ondek Hwech’in and other First Nations of value to our modern and environmentally detached lifestyles? Janine Benyus ( Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature , 2002) describes organisms able to adapt and survive in hostile natural environments.The Namibian beetle survives in the desert through an ingenious mechanism. It catches moisture from fog that rolls off the Atlantic by tilting its body and allowing the small peaks on its shell to scratch the incoming fog, harvesting the water. Once the water droplets grow to a sufficient size they succumb to gravity and roll along troughs that lead to the beetle’s mouth. Researchers have begun to reproduce the special textured surface for harvesting drinking water in arid regions of the world.
A straight spruce or pine pole was laid on the two tripods making a ridge beam which sup- ported tanned hides draped over it. If a larger structure was required, additional ridge beams would be added to new tripods. A variation replaced hides with small diameter poles placed side by side to form leaning walls. A more permanent structure used a rect- angular or hexagonal shaped post and beam framework to support leaning walls made up of small diameter logs.The system allowed dis- assembly and transportation of the hides and perhaps the ridge beam, however the plentiful small diameter aspen and spruce trees were often cut on site. We are surrounded by examples of survival in the most severe of climates.And lessons from nature are not alone as we can see in First Nations traditional dwellings. We can choose to continue along our current path that seems to direct us further away from these lessons, or we can engage with our diverse north- ern environments and run the risk of living more fully the ingenuity and beauty contained therein.
throughout much of the Yukon. Dwellings used boreal forest resources — trembling aspen, lodgepole pine and black spruce poles, spruce boughs, willow and alder stems, moss, caribou and moose hides, sinew and spruce root twine. Winter, or moss houses, provided shelter and warmth through their semi-subterranean configuration.A circular hole two to five metres in diameter was dug a half to one metre deep. Over this was assembled a framework of small diameter, bent willow or aspen poles tied together with sinew or split spruce root.The framework was covered by a patchwork of tanned hides with a central smoke hole and access openings.The final layer was a thick blanket of moss that pro - vided an efficient insulating layer.The interior dirt floor and walls were covered with a layer of spruce boughs, hides and furs. When warmer spring weather arrived, the moss houses were vacated in favour of simpler and less permanent moveable stick and skin structures.These were spruce or aspen poles lashed together to form two tripods spaced two to four metres apart. One tripod support was taller than the other for water drainage.
Antonio Zedda is an architect and partner in Kobayashi + Zedda Architects. He lives in Whitehorse,Yukon.The firm’s work can be viewed at www.kza.yk.ca
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l iving in northern Norway means living in close connection with the elements of nature. It is so, whether you live in an urban situation or in the countryside, by the coast or interior.The extreme contrasts of the seasons —the beautiful dark light of December, the shining whiteness of March, the almost unbelivable greenness of summer, and the yellow celebration of autumn before the returning of the darkness — they affect us all. The natural conditions are characterized by contrast and contradiction. People here tend to find beauty and quality of life not in spite of the rain and the snow, the darkness and the cold, but because of it. Beauty in this context is more the fruit of intense contrasts than of gentle harmony. It is impossible not to be affected by it. To live in such a landscape makes the experience a shared reference. The celebration of the returning of the sun in the end of January, Sunday cross-country skiing in the mountains, hiking in the summer — it is a ritual and a shared experience. This may open a different way of seeing and living, and a sensibility for the quality of the moment that includes the consciousness of change. The grandeur of the landscape makes you aware of the context, and not merely the objects in it.The experience of not just looking at scenery, but seeing by taking part in the changing process of nature, leads us to focus on the essence, not the surface. The most dramatic changes are the disappearing of the sun in Novem- ber, the returning of the sun in January and the coming of the midnight sun in May.The first rays of the sun on the mountain-tops in late January, after it has been totally gone for two months, is a moment of shivering jo. Then, after just a few minutes, it’s gone again. It’s like a few harmoni- ous chords on a piano. Such events are very emotional for everybody. The shifting of the elements in one week, one day, one minute, can be overwhelming. In spring trees turn green in two or three days.You can hear the grass growing on a summer morning. And then there is the silence and all the delicate and sublime colour-shiftings in the sky on a dark midwinter day. And there is the snow, sometimes 2.5m deep on flat land. Maybe the snow is too often talked about as a problem —huge masses of packed snow make perfect playgrounds for children where new spaces can be created by accident and creativity.
The Landscape and Architecture of 70ºN. Tromsø, Norway Bjorn Otto Braaten
Traditional building culture
The old trading centre at Kjerringoy, Nordland
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Sami mountain-settlement,Tromsø
The story of traditional building culture in northern Norway is not a story of refined craftmanship.The detailing does not focus on the smooth surface, but on the connections. And the meaning of the build- ing as object is nothing without understanding its natural and cultural context, which is the use and trading of the resources of the sea. Many small places on this long and icefree coastline had their names on the maps of Europe long before Oslo, the capital of Norway.And still fishery provides one of the main incomes in our country. 150 years ago the typical tradesman of the north read his weekly newspapers from Paris, spoke Danish to his wife, and a mixture of the Russian and Norwegian with his businesspartner of the Pomor trade.The sad and beautiful novel Pan by Knut Hamsun is connected to this context (facing page, below). The racks for drying fish that you can see in every place connected to the fisheries, is the ultimate contextual architectural expression of this area.They are open structures that can be extended when necessary. Landscape, a living, construction and space are integrated through a very simple and precise form. A different conception of place
Moving with their herds of reindeer from the interior where they spend the winter to the coast in the summer, some of the Sami still live in their traditional tents while on the move (above). There is an intricate relationship between the many fireplaces (in Sami, arran ) along the route, the landscape and the paths of the reindeer. The nomadic sense of place is not defined by a physical man-made enclosure, but by fixed points in the surrounding landscape. It is not the tent that establishes the nomadic place, it is the fireplace.
Fishing racks,Tromsø
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