First Nation in B.C. develops prefabricated housing system from locally-sourced wood

A home described as the first of its kind now stands in the Nak’azdli Whuten community near Fort St. James, B.C.

The home is a prototype for an Indigenous-led housing system that uses low-grade locally-sourced wood to produce prefabricated housing kits for northern communities.

The concept is to take trees from the local territory, mill them locally, and then have local workers use that lumber to build panels, which are then used to construct a house in a matter of days.

“You can build the panels through the winter months, and then in the summer you can erect the houses a lot quicker. The idea would be instead of producing two or three houses, we could maybe do 10 houses in this area with our construction crew and local contractors.”