For any construction project, there are no fewer than seven major stages before the first shovel hits the ground. From applying for funding to signing the contract, a lot of work goes on behind the scenes. Now imagine building in Nunavik. It’s a whole different kettle of fish!
In this series of three articles on building in Nunavik, we’ll talk about three key stages: selecting a site, designing a project, and maintaining and servicing the building inventory.
Following is the first article in this series.
Nunavik is perceived as a vast territory, an expansive playground for hunting and fishing, protected from real estate development. It may therefore come as a surprise that selecting a building site can be a problem. In fact, it’s a massive headache.
Political issues
“Obtaining land has recently become a real issue. All the communities are lacking space, sites, ‘Category I’ land allotments,” explains Sarah Aloupa, President of Kativik Ilisarniliriniq.
To put this into context, let’s look at a few facts. The James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement (JBNQA), signed in 1975, divided Nunavik’s territory into three categories. “Category I” lands, as Sarah Aloupa mentioned, belong to Inuit landholding corporations. Not only do JBNQA beneficiaries have exclusive hunting and fishing rights on these lands, but they can only develop on these portions of land. However, Category I lands, divided into 14 communities, represent only 1% of Nunavik’s 1,082,000 km² (source: Hunting, Fishing and Trapping Coordinating Committee, accessed February 18, 2025).
However, negotiations and political decisions take time. In the case of Nunavik, they lag behind the pace of demographic and environmental changes. What’s more, even if a site becomes available within the Category I lands, there are a number of technical constraints that complicate construction efforts.
“The Landholding Corporations Association is currently trying to negotiate with the government to extend our Category I land, as the population is growing and we’re running out of space.”
Technical issues
According to a report submitted to the Kativik Regional Government in February 2024 (source: Nunatsiaq News), residential development in Nunavik faces two major challenges: thawing permafrost and a lack of gravel.
“There are many, many areas where it’s impossible to build because there’s water accumulation in the spring, because the permafrost is thawing… or because it’s on a path traditionally used for hunting. We have to take all of these things into account.”
Although these constraints are all well documented, there are other, unexpected obstacles that also come into play:
“With the way grey water and drinking water are currently managed, many sites are unavailable for construction. This is because we have to choose much larger sites to build on, so that three trucks can get to the building to provide drinking water and heating oil and to manage wastewater,” explains Jérôme Dionne, Director, Material Resources.
“If we had a waterworks system, as is the case in several Nordic countries, and even in Iqaluit (Nunavut, Canada), we could afford to build in steeper areas that are currently inaccessible to us. Finland is doing it, for example. This would also allow us to choose smaller sites.”
Lastly, to address the shortage of gravel, our teams are already using a system of piles—which are set in rock or in deep permafrost—for the foundations of new buildings. This method should help reduce construction costs and prevent the risks created by global warming.
Once foundations are in place, how do people go about designing, building, and maintaining buildings in Nunavik? Stay tuned; we’ll explore this in a future article.