Welcome to summer in Canada! The warm weather brings with it a very specific season for all of us here at Greenstone Building Products. We are in the midst of Sealift season. This is a short, but busy time for us, which means all hands on deck. Sealift season is what we call late spring/early summer, as we are heavily focused on completing projects that are scheduled to travel by sealift cargo ships to remote northern locations.
We have provided ICE Panel building envelopes to some of North America’s northernmost communities such as Iqaluit, Arviat, and Rankin Inlet, all located in Nunavut, a northern territory of Canada. We are so excited to continue providing energy efficient solutions to our customers in remote areas of the country.
Due to the remoteness of the communities, there are limited trades and material suppliers available to provide construction in the area. Local businesses look to mainland general contractors to provide construction services as well as all the building materials required. We have been working with general contractors hired to work in the northern region for a number of years now, and the ICE Panel is continuing to be sought after for this very specific market. The ICE Panel became an extremely appealing option for these reasons:
- It’s easy to build with, limiting time spent in harsh weather
- It combines several construction steps, reducing on-site construction time
- It is highly energy efficient, providing airtight interior spaces
- It’s lightweight, drastically reducing freight costs
We supply the general contractor with ICE Panels for the building envelope as well as all the installation tools and materials needed to complete the structure. Once it has been delivered to the contractor, our involvement with the project is effectively complete.
The contractor has a few more tasks to finish. They will have to compile all the remaining building materials needed to completely finish the entire structure — this includes windows, doors, interior framing and insulation materials, fixtures, interior and exterior finishes, etc. All the necessary construction materials need to be included and shipped as one complete package as there is only one opportunity to send the shipment up north. The reason for this being that for most of the year, the sealift route is frozen. September and October mark the cut off for cargo ships to depart for the northern region.
The contractor will then crate the ICE Panels and organize all the other materials into shipping containers (sea cans). The crates and shipping containers are then delivered by truck to the Port of Churchill or the Port of Ste. Catherine (depending on the destination) to be loaded onto a sealift cargo ship headed for their final destination in northern Canada.
We have provided ICE Panel building envelopes to some of North America’s northernmost communities such as Iqaluit, Arviat, and Rankin Inlet, all located in Nunavut, a northern territory of Canada. We are so excited to continue providing energy efficient solutions to our customers in remote areas of the country.
Interested in building in a remote community? Let’s chat! Give us a call at 204-726-1426 or connect with us by emailing info@gsbp.ca.
