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INUVIK
As Canada's largest community north of the Arctic Circle and the first completely engineered Northern community, Inuvik played a pioneering role in Arctic construction.

That contribution to civil engineering has been recognized through a nomination for a National Historic Civil Engineering Site through the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering. Other sites that share the award include the Rideau Canal in Ottawa and the Canadian Pacific Railway. In civil engineering circles, it's a big deal.

"Inuvik was the first modern community north of the Arctic Circle," said Ken Johnson, senior planner and engineer for AECom, who put forth the nomination. "It was engineered entirely from scratch, including a whole above-ground pipe system. It was unique."

The engineers and contractors who started the project in the 1950s expected to find a metre of permafrost. Instead it was discovered that East-3 as Inuvik was called then, sat on 350 metres of ground that is frozen year-round. If buildings were built directly on the soil, heat from the buildings would thaw the permafrost and cause the buildings to sink.

The solution was timber piles drilled five metres into the ground, with about 0.5 to 1 metres of space between the ground and the building. Even the above-ground water and waste pipes sat on piles.

"The project was ground breaking in the 50's in cold-climate construction," Johnson said. "It was just nature and they built it from scratch and now it's a government centre for the entire region. It really is the centre for the region."

Rick Campbell, the current director of public works for the Town of Inuvik, said working in this climate still poses a big challenge. It's not a small town and there are a lot of structures and pipes to look after.

The town is just replacing the original utilidors now – more than 50 years after their construction. The original concept had two pipes to carry water and waste and two pipes with hot water to keep the materials from freezing in the winter and a large box around all four pipes to insulate them. The utilidor project this past summer now has only two pipes, no boxes and heated water and waste.

"I guess people back in the '50s knew what they were doing because it's still here," Campbell said. "Inuvik was one of the first towns to be developed and from civil engineering, they had to figure out how it will work."

A plaque will be made for the town if it wins the award. The recommended citation includes a tribute to the engineers and contractors who designed and built the town of Inuvik to recognize its unique place in history.

"There has never been a Canadian town so pondered, proposed, projected, planned, prepared and plotted as Inuvik," Johnson wrote in the proposal. "The long, very cold winters, permafrost and great distance from sources of supply were a challenge."

The work done to create Inuvik helped develop engineering in other cold regions. Before this, the only engineering projects were linear projects, such as the Alaska Highway, built in the 1940s. Resolute Bay, built after Inuvik as an engineered community, has similar design and construction, but never became as large a hub as Inuvik.

If Inuvik wins, it will be announced at the Canadian Society for Civil Engineers conference in June 2012. The nomination has already received endorsement from the history committee of the society and now faces the board of directors to see if the nomination has merit.

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