iqaluit square project mary crnkovich touch stone masonry...

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Iqaluit Square ProjectIqaluit Square Project

Mary Mary CrnkovichCrnkovich

Touch Stone MasonryTouch Stone Masonry

Ottawa, ONOttawa, ON

Iqaluit Square Presentation at Capital Theatre, Port Hope, Ontario Dry Stone Walling Association of Canada, October 2007

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Greetings – Thanks it is great to be here. Tonight – I am going to be speaking about a project that is very special to me because: - I love working with stone – and I love the North and its people I was privileged worked with Inuit for almost 30 years now -in the last 7 working with them on Stone projects has been better than winning any lotto. My work in Nunavut started long before the Iqaluit Square project but the Square project is linked to the earlier work. In 1980 I was hired by ITC (Inuit Tapirisat of Canada) as a researcher/negotiator/ in the land claims negotiations with the Gov’t of Canada. In 1990 I became the in house legal counsel to Tungavik Federation of Nunavut – the ITC arm- responsible for completing the Nunavut negotiations. At the same time, I worked with Pauktuutit, the national Inuit women’s association and with several of the Inuit regional associations in Nunavut and Labrador. Northern places, people, and adventures over the past 20 Yrs. or so have very much INFLUENECED the outcome of this project and to a greater extent the design and installations of the Pedestrian Walkways Project I was privileged to get to know the land and the people of this very special part of Canada intimately –

Nunavut and the people of this territory hold a special place in my heart.

So I have had to refrain from telling all my stories and keeping it to the current project.

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For now – it will be the Iqaluit square project and if time permits a little bit on the Pedestrian Walkway’s project Before I jump into this presentation- I would like to ask Jo Hodgson to stand. Jo worked with me on this project. It was a real treat to be able to share this work with someone who had never been to the Arctic.

Quite apart from having amazing walling skills, Jo’s skills in adult education as well as her great adventurous spirit proved to the necessary ingredients to keep us heading in the right direction.

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Living and working with the people of Iqaluit, Jo got right into the groove of life up North. Assisting Jo and I, throughout this project were a cast of characters, some of whom you will see tonight – the 8 Inuit trainees that worked with us in the first year,

- The remaining two who worked with us in the subsequent two phases and the other members of the Hodgson clan. Jo’s sister Sal - who started her own dry stone walling business in 1989 and her partner Nick Newton – our Mr. Caps spent their summer vacation with us helping to get the walls of the Square completed. So those are some of the players, now to the purpose of the discussion tonight.

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Iqaluit Square is a PLACE and it is a SYMBOL “As a place – it is a crossroads – where paths come and go, a place of gatherings for one or two or a hundred or more Defined by an ellipse of rocks, it stands out clear and simple in a large open space surrounded by scattered buildings As a symbol – it is the civic centre of Iqaluit ; a ceremonial place, visible at a distance, next to the elder’s centre. It points to the North – a North that is geographical but also rooted in Inuit identity and heritage. “ (taken from the Office of Urbanism/ John Laird and Associates, concept presentation for Iqaluit Square, 2004.)

(Photo Credit: Angsar Walk)

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Its elliptical shape follows the shape of the qammaq which is winter house originally used by the Thule, the predecessors of Inuit. The shape, use of local materials and dry stone construction–roots this project in the heritage of the people who have called this land home for thousands of years. So where and what exactly is Iqaluit. It is located in the Nunavut Territory.

On April 1, 1999 Nunavut – means “our land” in Inuktitut – was created

It is:

- almost 2 million square kilometres in size,

- largest province or territory in the country

- you could almost fit two Ontarios inside one Nunavut.

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Northwest TeoKivalik(Keewatin) and Qiqiktani (B)PICTURE: MAP OF NUNAVUT -

More than ½ of the Territory is islands,

some of the largest in the world.

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Iqaluit is the capital city of Nunavut. It is located on the largest island in Nunavut – Baffin Island - 5th largest island on earth.

Iqaluit - which means “place of many fishes”

is appropriately named being at the south end of Baffin Island,

(Picture of Sylvia Grinnell River – empting into Koojesse Inlet, an inlet of Frobisher Bay)

-east

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Most of Nunavut is igneous rock of the Canadian Shield, and to a lesser extent areas of metamorphic and sedimentary stone. Unfortunately for dry stone wallers, the flat, layered, sedimentary rock is not anywhere near Iqaluit.

The Tundra that covers the shield is - a land mass were the subsoil is permafrost, or permanently frozen.

Permafrost is essentially a frozen bog

Permafrost is a major consideration in all construction. Our work was no exception.

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As the temperature rises the active layer of the permafrost begins to melt – in any low lying area the water gets trapped between the active layer and the permanently frozen mass,

Once you begin to excavate in these areas – the water saturates the area and some cases – as in this one taken in July 2006, in front of the post office – you get, what we liked to call the “unexpected water feature”

In this particular case – as in the Iqaluit Square project -

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we excavated the site – trenching down approximately 2 feet. – the point at which water started to be visible

– We replaced the excavated fill with ¾ clear aggregate. – The foundation stones were laid into the ¾ clear on average 10”deep from grade. – While the ¾ clear may not be ideal in terms of compaction,

it provided good drainage and helps minimize the damage caused due to freeze/melt arising from the surrounding, melting permafrost.

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SIDE BAR INFO - A severe threat to the tundra, specifically to the permafrost, is global warming. In Iqaluit the average temperature below ground is roughly -3.3 C, and the ground temp is on average 4.4 C greater than air temp. It is estimated that it will take 25 years to warm the permafrost to 0 C mean average ground temp in Iqaluit.

Nunavut is unique for many reasons but one that is very relevant to dry stone construction is its weather – Unlike southern Canada with 4 seasons, Inuit work a 6 season cycle.

(Photo courtesy of D. Noble)

In one of our summers in the south – beginning in mid June and ending somewhere in late August to early September– in Iqaluit we will have gone through 3 seasons. The construction period begins in Uppingak – spring (when the ice in the sea begins to break up and continues through Aujak – summer – when the snow melts and you can see open sea and the tundra is bloom

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Photo courtesy of D. Noble)


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and Ukiassak – which means “anticipation of the cold”.

Basically, out of the 12 months we have three months give or take a week on either side to do our dry stone construction.

This picture was taken my last day in Iqaluit this year. It was September 7th – the temperature was 2 and heading to a high of 7 the snow had arrived in the surrounding hills and would stay now until Uppingak. In town it still felt like an October day down south.

(September 7, 2007 – taken looking out to backyard of my house in Iqaluit)

When I arrived in Ottawa 3 hours later it was 31 degrees!

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To an outsider, the land can seem barren but to Inuit, the Thule, and the Toonit before them the necessities of life were abundant because they knew the ways of the Arctic.

The geographic boundaries that define this new territory mirror the land use boundaries of the Inuit and their predecessors. Of the 30,000 people who make up the population of

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Nunavut, 85 % Photo courtesy of D. Noble)

are Inuit. Within the Inuit population, 60% are under the age of 25

lose to one-fifth of Nunavut’s population lives in Iqaluit.

As of April of this year, Iqaluit’s population was 6,500 and Inuit make up 60% of the population.

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The unique culture and language of the Inuit is directly related to their relationship with the land, sea and all the natural resources found on or within them.

With the abundance of stone, it is not a surprise that it features prominently, in the way of life of Inuit. Throughout Nunavut and especially in the south Baffin region, today you can find remains of stone tools and structures used by Aboriginal peoples over the past 3500years.

But you don’t have to travel to Nunavut to experience a little bit of Inuit culture.

The ubiquitous Inukshuk - is perhaps the best known symbol of Inuit culture – appearing on the Nunavut flag – it can be seen throughout Canada in gardens, parks, along roadsides and now serving as the symbol for the 2010 Olympics

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But it is the QAMMAK that is most connected to the Iqaluit Square.

(Picture of Qammak courtesy of Gov’t of Nunavut) Iqaluit Square grew from humble beginnings… The idea of the having a gathering place in the core of the city developed out of a project undertaken by a group of Iqaluit residents calling themselves the Iqaluit Beautification Society.

(Photo courtesy of Aerial View of Iqaluit taken 2005, Wikipedia “Iqaluit” sheet) The Society was committed to creating green space and park areas throughout Iqaluit in attempts to beautify their city. This was in direct response to the construction boom that started in the late 90s to build the necessary infrastructure needed for the new territory and government created pursuant to the land claims agreement.

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(

Everywhere new buildings

Were being built

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and more tundra was being swallowed up The Society with volunteers from the community participated in two workshops that I volunteered to organize and deliver in 1999 and 2001.

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In those workshops, community members interested in working with stone came out to collect, and lay stone,

build stone pads as well as a very, small retaining wall.

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For those who wanted to build using mortar, we

decided to build a stone bridge to replace one of the two wooden skids being used for to cross the little creek.

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The Nunavt Arts and Crafts Association agreed to donate two carvings done by an elder, Lucy Tutsweetok

and her grandson Billy. The Rotary club donated the benches and so began the idea of a gathering place in this special part of town.

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The popularity of this site, not to mention, the absence of any vandalism over the years, gave the city council the idea of expanding the park to create a space for community events, ceremonies and larger Nunavut-wide events – such as Nunavut Day. The City identified two prominent goals of the Iqaluit Square project in its request for bids – 1) to train a select group of Inuit women and men to learn dry stone walling skills – the project would offer employment to the trainees throughout the three phases of the Project with the potential for employment opportunities in the future; and 2) to build a series of walls that formed a 200 foot ellipse- to serve as a bench – each wall being approximately 2 feet wide and 1’1/2 high. Within this ellipse of walls we were required to build a performance stage that was 30 feet wide and 1 ½ feet high.

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I am going to limit my comments the construction goal . The training goal is an important

one and a whole other story. (Photo courtesy of J. Hodgson) Suffice it to say, I continue to believe in training components for such project but hopefully,

based on the lessons learned in this project, these endeavours can be tied into the longer term trades training and apprenticeship program offered through the secondary and post secondary education programs.

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. (Photo courtesy of L. Narraway)

Just a small digression here – but an important one is that out of the 8 trainees that worked with us in Phase 1, we had two trainees continue to work with us in the remaining two phases and as of September 2007 one was employed full time with the contractor who provided us with our heavy equipment support (Nunavut Excavating). The other, Josepee Teemotee, standing next to me in this photo, was our oldest and one of the best trainees we had – at 63 he was an inspiration and symbol of pride to the many Inuit who saw him working on these projects. Now to the second goal – the construction – the project was divided into three phases Phase 1 and 3 – were for wall construction – the east side of the ellipse in Phase 1, the west in Phase 3. For access reasons, the performance stage was done in Phase 2

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(Photo courtesy of City of Iqaluit/ Office of Urbanism) Moving from conceptual drawings and plans

(Photo courtesy of J. Hodgson) to the real thing always results in some changes or adjustments. Iqaluit Square was no exception. Some of the “concepts” that were changed included: 1. width of the wall/bench. The width was a problem because originally it was supposed to be 6 ½ feet wide. Given the time frame and budget, such a wall was a problem. As well as these factors, another problem that continued to plague us even after these dimensions were changed, was the lack of the specific type of stone needed to complete this size of wall (i.e. cap stones). No doubt in Scotland, such a wall had we built it would have qualified as a

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consumption dyke! Minimizing the size also meant that, alas the great dyke/wall of Nunavut would not be visible from MARS.

2. NUMBER AND LOCATION OF BOULDERS- Another prominent and visible

change to this design was the number and location of boulders

The original concept incorporated boulders to create a horizon –so the space would be visible from a distance, the boulders were to represent a gathering or coming together.

As well the whole ellipse was oriented on a north south axis – pointing north and for symbolic reasons - – the largest boulder symbolizing the north –is located at the north end of the ellipse.

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Instead of the 11

boulders specified we ended up installing 23. More boulders were used to address some grading issues and for safety/security reasons. Boulders were installed to butt up to the cheek ends of each wall to allow us to pin the capstones , keeping them secure and

discouraging people from attempting to dislodge or vandalize without considerable effort. As well the additional use of boulders helps to demarcate the FULL EXTENT OF WALL in winter - when snow covers the square – literally – leaving only the boulder tops and caps stones visible.

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GRADING is another aspect of the construction that created considerable problems when attempting to construct the Square. We graded the site to as close to the 2% grade on the north south axis as possible. However because of the existing natural constraints

- the creek running on the north south axis adjacent to the west side of the ellipse And man made constraints such as

the Queen Elizabeth way on the north end and the fire route and utilities road on the

south and east end, and the first little school house ever built in the old Frobisher Bay

only 10ft from the south boulder on the east side

, the east to west grade could not be leveled out as much as we would have liked

Where grading was not possible we addressed some of the problems with strategically

locating boulders within wall segments and altering the location and size of the openings

between the wall segments.

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Once the sight was graded, we excavated for the wall sections that would make up the east half of the ellipse.

The trench was excavated to allow all water to drain to south east of the site. Once the trench was excavated, we began to install the boulders.

(Photo courtesy of J. Hodgson)

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The boulders were located within wall segments this allowed us to step up or down where needed while still maintaining the look of a flat bench/wall top consistently across all of the wall segments. – The design specified 8 openings, each 6.5 feet wide except what you see here in the forefront which is the opening in front of the Elders’ Qammak, which is just over the specified 50ft.

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Because the stage is so close to the west side of the ellipse, even with the boulder used in the most severe grade changes, we still had some real problems. We decided to use boulders were we could and to also expand the openings.

This worked on the west side because it was adjacent to the little park we had constructed in 1999, 2001. This is a picture of the little park with stone bridge, and one remaining wooden bridge taken

in 2001. Below is the same park with a road and stone culvert connecting the little park to the Elders Qammak opening at Iqaluit Square.

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By opening up the west side entry points it helped to better integrate the existing park into the Square.

4. Paving. Was another change that took place from the concept /design stages to the construction stage. The stone presented in the concept designs looked like it came straight from Owen Sound, Ontario or for those international guests – Cumbria. Unfortunately- the flat, layered blocky pieces that can be laid by one or two persons is a rare find in Iqaluit. The openings and especially the largest opening at the elder’s centre were to be paved with stone to mirror the paving found in a qammaq –as shown in the picture below.

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(Photo courtesy of Gov’t. of Nunavut)

In this picture below, Jo stands beside one of the “pavers” we were able to find from our stockpiles out at the North 40.

Unfortunately, paving with stone in Iqaluit becomes a very labour and machine intensive operation both at the collection stage. As well as the installation stage – here in front of the post office – most of the pavers were about 10” to 12” deep – the small ones – but the larger ones were up to 2 feet in depth.

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For this pavers here we needed two machines to get it into position

With the front end loader finally placing it. The hole it which it was placed was excavated and then we hand dug to match the contours of the stone bottom as much as possible. In this game, you really do only get one chance to place it so you have to get as close to level as is possible. At Iqaluit Square our paving stone work was limited to stage where it was essential for ease of walking or wheelchairs

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The problem with finding pavers takes us to the next major challenge – generally stone availability. While there was an abundance of stone around Iqaluit,

(Photo courtesy of D. Noble)

walling stone, including suitable through stones were an ongoing problem. I had identified access and availability of stone as a challenge in our bid proposal.

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I had learned from my experience creating the smaller park–that suitable stone would take considerable time to locate. All the stone we used in this project, with the exception of the boulders and larger capstones, were hand picked and hand loaded into buckets on front end loaders and hauled to the building site. In these pictures, the trainees work with us to collect the stone in our first year of the project.

Hand picking was necessary to ensure not a lot of unusable stone would also get collected and to prevent unnecessary marking of the stone.

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Where access to stone was not available or we were unable to lift due to the weight, an excavator or front end loader would assist us using slings and chains were necessary.

(Photo courtesy of D. Noble) For boulders and stones that could not be lifted safely by hand, we used slings and a loader. Close to ¼ of our time on the Square project was spent locating, collecting and transporting the stone. In total over 230 tones where collected by hand.

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Stone was delivered to the site and then sorted


Stone not used in the Phase 1 was stockpiled on the site and then

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Sorted in the next phase. Stones that we could not use on the wall were used in and on the stage – which I will discuss later. The rest of stones that were too small for caps and too big for walling stone, were used in the various installations of the Pedestrian walkway projects – mostly for slab walls

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At the Iqaluit House complex For This dry stone retaining wall with slab wall sides and back next to the Post Office

And at one of our other sites, the stones, were used to again for slab walls to create smaller gardens around the caving installations and as pavers in the sitting areas.

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Back to the construction of the Iqaluit Square– the absence of capstones and through stones proved to be an ongoing challenge. .

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Because it was so difficult to find stones of suitable length to serve as capstones,

we used stones that were longer than necessary, then cut them to size

Photo courtesy of J. Hodgson) And faced them to remove the saw cuts

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Contrary to the uniform caps shown in the final design, the stones we ultimately used for caps were far from uniform.

(Drawing courtesy of Office for Urbanism/City of Iqaluit)

. The idea of building up course by course became virtually impossible.

Instead we had to build up to the cap

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which meant we would lay our first course of stones, then find the caps we would using then place them on the wall temporarily at their finished height. Then we would build the “in between” courses. This approach was unavoidable since our caps were so few and of varied in depth. It also meant you could reasonably work with only one or two caps at a time.

Photo courtesy of J. Hodgson) This approach for the most part required two people, with one lifting as the other placing the stones of to find the finished height. It was a slow process. Requiring us to place and remove the same cap several times to get the final setting.

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Slowly but surely we got the walls built! THE STAGE (Drawing courtesy of Office for Urbanism/City of Iqaluit)

Like the walls- the concept of the stage and the end result were not the same. The two most obvious changes were – in the location and the stone used to build the stage.

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STAGE LOCATION – The proposed location of the stage was on top of infrastructure that could not be moved – an UNDERGROUND main water pipe that was not identified until later in Phase 1 – I’ll get to that - and the access hole for the sewer overflow which is surrounded by the pink concrete posts in the above picture.

Throughout Iqaluit – water and sewer pipes connected to the utilidor system have access holes that are marked with these pink concrete posts to ensure they are easily identified when the snow arrives However incorporating this into the stage became somewhat of a challenge.

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We assumed that since the pink posts and overflow access hole located in the middle of the work site were not visible in any of the designs nor mentioned in any of the specs, that it was disconnected and would be removed…we were assured the posts would be taken out and everything after that was vague and left to “later….”

– For us, later came sooner than expected, when the overflow had powerful resurgence during our first phase of construction

– Just before the overflow – a foul odour permeated the work site - the trainees recognized the smell and promptly encouraged us to call Public Works “before she blew”. When Public Works arrived, they attempted to clean up the mess and also let us know that this could happen while not frequently, perhaps once every year or two. When we provided more details about the work intended to be undertaken in the following Phase 2 and 3, design – they then informed us of the main water pipe running right through this site and directly under the proposed stage location – so we had to relocate the stage.

In addition to relocating the stage, we also proposed to the City that the construction method change. Based on the problems finding enough cap stones in Phase 1, not to mention the limited walling stone and the remaining 100 feet of wall to build in the final phase – we proposed a boulder wall to serve as the stage perimeter

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The city agreed and we went to work installing

Each boulder was strapped and placed using a fork-lift with Jo and me guiding them into place. Once in place, we sought out the best fit from the boulders we had selected and brought to the site.

Eventually the boulders where in place except for the ramp. The design had not identified what to do for access on and off the stage.

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We proposed altering the design to incorporate a ramp that would allow easy access to and from the stage platform. Here we are beginning the ramp.

(Photo courtesy of Go’s of Nunavut)

The drum used by Inuit has a handle that is slightly curved. Since the stage was round, it seemed appropriate to shape the ramp to resemble the drum handle – so from a plan view the stage looks like an Inuit drum.

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To add some green to the stonescape and to address some grading problems, we transplanted tundra that had been disturbed on construction sites or beside roads.

While the stage garden was being planted on the outside of the stage…

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the base of the stage was filled with the discarded, unusable walling stone. Unfortunately, in our first year of stone picking, the motivation to fill the bucket rather than pick the best stone, was too great for some of the trainees.

Once the circle of the stage was filled with stone, our “consumption stage.” We then dumped ¾ clear aggregate leaving 10” at the top for a ring of pavers and stone dust. We also collected seaweed and kelp from the seashore and placed it on the transplanted tundra. Not only does the seaweed help to keep it hydrated, it provides food for the plants.

Once the ¾ clear was in place, we then began installing the “paving” stones

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along the outer edge of the stage.

These stones served to fill gaps between the boulders keeping the dust from spilling out.

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When the paving was completed, we then stoned the ramp and prepared for the gravel and stone dust toping.

In our final phase, we paved the ramp with stone and then turned our attention to the access for the sewage overflow

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This is the completed stage, and yes, can you spot the access? Yes the Sewage overflow access we attempted as much as possible to integrate it into the design around the stage. We still had to ensure access to the hole and at the same time we wanted to try to limit the overflow to a defined area, should an overflow occur. Public works agreed to remove the pink posts as long as we protected the hole with boulders that would be visible in winter.. We installed the boulders, than used leftover stone not useful for caps or pavers to retain the ¾ clear aggregate we used for drainage around the hole. That brings us to the end of the Iqaluit Square project. The following pictures highlight some of the Pedestrian Walkway project that we began in the summer of 2006 and concluded in 2007. All the carvings used in the Pedestrian Walkway installations were done by Inuit from Nunavut, with the exception of the sun carving at the post office done by a carver from the South who was working with Inuit in Iqaluit. NACA gave us permission to use them as we saw fit in this project. Acknowledgements: Unless otherwise credited, all photos in this presentation were taken by Mary Crnkovich. Use of these photos or those credited to others is not possible without permission from the photographers.

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