In the Nak’azdli Whuten community near Fort St. James, B.C., a unique home has been unveiled, touted as a pioneering project. The house serves as a prototype for an innovative Indigenous-led housing initiative utilizing locally-sourced low-grade wood to create prefabricated housing kits tailored for northern regions.
The innovative concept involves harvesting trees from the local area, processing them nearby, and employing local labor to construct panels used for assembling a house within a few days. Elky Taylor, a member of Nak’azdli Whuten, expressed that this housing endeavor signifies not only residential security but also economic stability and community sustainability in the region.
The groundbreaking pilot project emerged from a collaboration between Nak’azdli Whuten Development Corp. and Deadwood Innovations, a forestry startup in Fort St. James. Together with researchers from the University of Northern British Columbia’s Wood Innovation Research Lab, they developed a prefabricated mass timber panel system.
Mass timber, a type of wood product produced by bonding wood layers to form robust structural elements like beams and panels, is at the core of this initiative. CEO of Deadwood Innovations, Owen Miller, highlighted that this model home marks a new era as mass timber construction is traditionally associated with large-scale urban buildings rather than rural community housing.
The pre-designed and prefabricated panels, manufactured in a controlled factory environment, offer superior quality control compared to on-site construction, as explained by Jianhui Zhou, an associate professor at UNBC specializing in wood engineering. This approach enables efficient and high-quality construction, addressing housing challenges faced by Indigenous and northern communities.
John-Paul Wenger, CEO of Nak’azdli Whuten Development Corp., shared the vision of establishing a company to produce mass timber houses locally, enhancing housing availability in the region. The show home, a two-story structure with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a loft, showcases the potential for custom designs tailored to different community needs.
The housing project aims to utilize local resources effectively and foster community pride, with plans to expand the initiative to benefit more families in Nak’azdli and the surrounding region. Through this innovative approach, the community is gearing up to embrace a sustainable and locally-driven housing solution.
The show home will serve as a model for the next eighteen months before being gifted to a Nak’azdli family or elder, sparking enthusiasm and pride within the community for this transformative housing endeavor.