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
On Site review 11
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Spring 2004
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