A modular housing company has put its first units on the market in Cambridge Bay. CHOU Consulting and Development was founded by Amanda Doiron and Stuart Rostant.

During an interview with Nunavut News, they shared challenges they have faced since the creation of their enterprise, their goals for the future, and they painted a picture of the housing crisis in Nunavut as they have experienced it. This is the first in a two-part series.

Doiron: We moved to the Arctic 12 years ago, to work for the GN. We wanted to buy a house because we weren’t very content with the GN housing. The problem was that housing was simply not available on the market, so we started trying to find a way to get a house by ourselves. At first we tried a Nelson Homes package, which consists of a package of panels directly shipped to create housing units.

We realized that constructing the houses instead could be better suited for the Arctic. We added insulation and added a few things to make it Northern ready but it still wasn’t what we felt it needed to be.

We secured a double lot in Cambridge Bay which we’re on right now. We’re now using another system of instant panels: foam metal panels. We realized it was a better way of building, better efficiency and it’s quick to build. We did three projects using that system; a fourplex, the commercial building (for) Kuugaq Café and a fiveplex. That was already a better way to put homes up.

We were then approached by Greenstone Panels which is another foam and metal building panel company, developed in Canada, manufactured in Brandon, Man., and that is what we are using now.

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