Northern Housing Webinar Series
Building Indigenous Housing Sovereignty
Stan Knight, a member of Opaskwayak Cree Nation, leads Zachary Knight Enterprises (ZKE) with over 30 years of experience in Indigenous housing and infrastructure. ZKE empowers communities through project management, asset planning, and culturally grounded solutions. Its flagship initiative, Inspector in a Box (IIAB), trains local members to perform home inspections using advanced tools like drones and thermal cameras. This reduces reliance on external contractors while opening employment pathways. With a deep commitment to self-determination, Stan’s work centers Indigenous leadership in addressing housing challenges across Turtle Island.
This 30-minute presentation will introduce the work of Zachary Knight Enterprises (ZKE) and the Inspector in a Box (IIAB) program, two initiatives advancing Indigenous-led solutions to the housing crisis across Turtle Island. We will explore how these programs are reshaping housing delivery by centering Indigenous knowledge, supporting workforce development, and leveraging existing funding to create sustainable, scalable, and community-driven housing systems. Participants will gain insight into ZKE’s nation-building approach and IIAB’s practical tools for asset management, training, and inspection, designed For Indigenous, By Indigenous.
Evaluating Alaskan Housing for Climate Adaptation
Based in Anchorage, Alaska where she grew up, Meghan Holtan brings both lived experience and research expertise to questions of housing, climate adaptation, and community wellbeing in northern contexts. Before pursuing her PhD in Urban and Regional Planning at the State University of New at Buffalo, she worked for many years as a planning and housing analyst in Alaska, giving her firsthand understanding of the challenges and innovations happening in northern communities. Her work sits at the intersection of housing, governance, and health equity. Her dissertation research explores how Alaska's housing providers are already innovating for rapid environmental and political change, and how better evaluation and monitoring tools could support and amplify their work. She's particularly drawn to arts-based methods that can widen access to the decision-making processes that shape our built environments.
Social housing providers across Alaska are using new housing designs and technology, rethinking supply chains, and experimenting with programs, policies, and outreach strategies to help the communities they serve adapt to a changing climate. But how do we know what works? This webinar shares findings from interviews with Alaska housing providers, evaluation experts from around the world, and a review of literature. Together with an advisory panel, this knowledge is being used to inform an evaluation approach and monitoring toolset that will be piloted with six Alaska housing projects this winter. Come with your questions and ideas related to evaluation, monitoring, and storytelling about housing in the North.
Designing for Northern, remote, and Arctic Communities
Niss Feiner, C.E.T., CHD, is the Principal Mechanical Designer at Delta-T Designs Inc. and a specialist in northern and Arctic building systems. With a career grounded in both construction and engineering, he focuses on delivering practical, resilient mechanical designs for remote communities across Canada’s North. Niss teaches HVAC technology at George Brown College, instructs nationally with HRAI, and contributes to ASHRAE through authorship and technical committee work, including the Cold-Climate Building Design Guide and the Certified HVAC Designer Study Guide. A frequent speaker at industry events, he offers field-tested insight on cold-climate design, heat pumps, ventilation, and effective engineering practice.
Extreme cold and wind, sparse infrastructure, and an average population density of 0.05 people per square kilometre means that Canada’s northern territories face very unique challenges for building construction. The challenges of a remote, and very cold climate intersecting with the social consequences of colonialism mean that engineers need to have a good understanding of the technical issues, and the lived experiences of the communities involved. This presentation explores the climate impact to building design and operation, logistical and infrastructure challenges that shape building design, and the social and historical context that affects project viability and success.