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IQALUIT - They are everywhere.

Businesses use them as storage spaces. Homeowners have turned them into sheds. One has even been painted blue and converted into a recycling drop-off bin.

With no roads leading in or out of Iqaluit, the dependence on shipping containers is enormous.

To a Detroit, Michigan architect, sea containers like this would be the building blocks of a new condominium project. - Herb Mathisen/NNSL photo

A quick scan of city streets shows great evidence of this. Parked in front of apartment complexes or in backyards are multitudes of sea containers - also known as Sea-Cans - the 20-foot-long, eight-foot-high steel boxes that store goods on barges.

There must be hundreds sitting around the city.

A recent article in Nunavut News/North examined the city's 1.5 per cent home vacancy rate. A local rental officer was quoted as saying the supply of new homes is not meeting demand.

One clever Iqalummiuq said the Sea-Cans could help solve the city's housing crunch.

She pointed to an innovative Detroit, Michigan architect who plans on stacking empty containers four high, and then cutting in windows and doors and installing plumbing and electricity.

At first glance, the idea of making homes out of Sea-Cans may seem silly.

Taking into account, however, the high cost of shipping building materials up to Iqaluit, and with literally hundreds of Sea-Cans coming into the city each summer, maybe the concept is not so far flung.

Francois Gaudreau, assistant manager of Nunavut Sealink and Supply Inc., said on each of the four or five sealifts his company brings up each summer, an average of 75 containers are shipped up.

"We are shipping more and more containers up North, if you compare that to 10 years ago," said Gaudreau.

Gaudreau said some people rent the containers from the company, and once goods are brought up, the containers are sent back down south to be used again. Others own containers outright. Sea-Can Containers in Edmonton sell the 20-foot-long used steel containers for $2,875, and new ones at $3,875.

Gaudreau said he has heard of Sea-Cans being used as housing. One official with the Nunavut Housing Corporation, who wished not to be named, said if the idea worked, they would be doing it.

"The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) has done a bunch of research on design concepts on the utilization of Sea-Cans," said Peter Scott, president of the Nunavut Housing Corporation, adding that an Edmonton company is trying to promote the idea.

"It's one that we've taken a quick look at, but not one we've considered seriously up here."

Scott said that, considering the history of housing in the North where "matchbox" houses were put up in the 1950s and '60s, using Sea-Cans would be seen as stepping back 40 or 50 years, and Nunavummiut would be insulted by the cheaply-made housing.

Scott said the idea may work for mining or exploration camp bunkhouses.

Gaudreau himself would be a little hesitant to drop a welcome mat in front of a Sea-Can home, seeing as it is warmer in Detroit than in Iqaluit.

"It may be a bit chilly," he said.