Winter shelter in the Arctic can take form in an upside down hunting boat – a traditional Inuit practice. Covey Island Boatworks, award winning builders of hand-crafted yachts, power and sailboats, has brought that idea into dry dock developing a prototype wood and epoxy prefab that applies boatbuilding principles directly to an extreme Arctic home.
Wood is the oldest boatbuilding material and the best, according to Covey Island Boatworks. The same qualities that make it seaworthy – light, strong, flexible, warm and beautiful – apply to its usefulness on dry land. That was what inspired a Nunavut resident to put his boat-inspired design into the capable hands of Covey Island Boatworks.
The prefab idea spent nearly three years in development and was completed last summer. The result is a highly-insulated, prefabricated modular home that can be assembled on-site. The extreme setting requires off-grid living and this Arctic prototype is equipped with solar, wind and marine driven systems.
Covey Island Boatworks partner Brock Junkin has taken up residence in the prototype in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, testing the shipwrights’ first venture into (very cold) dry land dwellings and systems. The company, which operates out of Petite Riviere in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia, is researching the possibility of producing similar prefabs in the future.
+ Covey Island Boatworks
+ At the Chronicle Herald Nova Scotia
Via TreeHugger
Very nice – would work well in Canada.
Interesting concept. Tell me more
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