Modular homes help rebuild lives: indigenous labour, expertise plays major role in rebuilding Kashechewan.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: Construction

March was a milestone month for hundreds of residents of the remote First Nation community of Kashechewan.

It marked the final lift of 52 duplexes (104 units) onto its foundation, thus completing a housing project that first began last July in the Far North community of 1,700 on the Albany River.

In May 2014, 36 homes were damaged in Kashechewan were damaged due to flooding from the snow melt.

It forced the evacuation of 454 residents to temporary accommodations in Kapuskasing.

Over the past few months, as the new homes in the $47-million federal housing program passed inspection and became ready for habitation, residents who had been displaced for as long as three years began trickling back into town.

Tundra Construction, a First Nation-owned company, headquartered in Moose Factory, served as a subcontractor under the general contractor, Vytis Lands, a subsidiary of Belanger Construction of Sudbury.

"We did all the foundations, all the training, we stitched the units together and the final buttoning up of the units to get them ready for the handover to the clients," said Terry Sutherland, president of Tundra Construction.

The duplexes were constructed by Maple Leaf Homes in New Brunswick with the first batch of 32 transported up through Quebec last year, across the James Bay by tug and barge, and then up the Albany River to the community.

The remaining 20 were trucked to Cochrane and loaded onto rail for the trip to Moosonee before being offloaded onto trucks for shipment on the James Bay winter road.

While creating a new subdivision in Kashechewan was an event of great magnitude, probably the most positive outcome was that almost all the primary labour was local.

"Our workforce was 99 per cent local band members," said Sutherland, with an estimated 50 residents working alongside experienced tradespeople in roles such as carpenters, labourers, electricians, plumbers, lifting and rigging.

The two-storey duplexes arrived in four box-like pieces, ranging from three to six-bedroom units, and weighing as much as 30,000 pounds.

With a 120-ton crane, the boxes were hoisted into place using cables and placed on the foundations.

"This whole system (of handling modular homes) was new to pretty much everyone up there," said Sutherland. "The first one was a learning process for a lot of them, but after that, it was just general carpentry with the beams. It was a different process as compared to a stick-built house."

As of late March, 32 duplexes (64...