Skidegate’s new Xaayda Naay House opened for a sneak preview during Skidegate Days on Saturday, July 20.
From a balcony on the new 24-unit apartment building, people on the tour could hear car horns cheering on Totem to Totem marathoners running down below.
Getting Xaayda Naay House to the finish line has been its own kind of marathon — started in 2018, the project got delayed by engineering challenges and by COVID-19.
But now, with a grand opening only a month or so away, organizers are looking forward to welcoming the first people to come live at Xaayda Naay — a building designed mainly for elders with stunning views and income-adjusted rents that is steps away from the new Skidegate Wellness Centre next door.
“We’re excited — it looks great,” said John Gladstone, a Skidegate band councillor and president of the new Xaayda Naay House Society that will manage the building, set rents, and handle tenant applications.
“I’ve been walking around and looking at the craftsmanship,” he said.
Designed by David Nairne + Associates, a firm that also worked on the Haida Heritage Centre, Xaayda Naay House is a long, two-storey building with cedar beams and columns, dark grey siding and a modern look to echoe the wellness centre beside it.
Each floor the building has six one-bedroom and six two-bedroom apartments. On the ground floor, two of the two-bedroom units are wheelchair-accessible, with roll-under counters and accessible washrooms.
Every apartment in the building has a den and a balcony or a patio that overlooks the village and the ocean below.
Billy Yovanovich, chief councillor for the Skidegate Band Council, said it hasn’t been an easy project, and it took many hands to get this far.
“We’ve actually moved a mountain,” he said.
Set on a hillside above Highway 16, the steeply sloped site where Xaayda Naay House and the Skidegate Wellness Centre now stand required tree clearing, rock blasting, and significant engineering work to stabilize the ground and make sure rainwater gets safely diverted to a nearby creek.
While it was a challenging site to build on, it is high above the tsunami flood zone and projected sea-level rise, and was by far the most popular choice for a new wellness centre and seniors building among residents who participated in a 2017 Skidegate community plan.
“The buildings are meant to complement each other,” said Nangkilslas, Trent Moraes, deputy chief councillor for Skidegate.
“It should improve quality of life for several people.”
Inspired by Haida tradition and a healthcare model used by the Indigenous-led Southcentral Foundation in Alaska, the Skidegate Wellness Centre will take a broad, long-term approach to health rather than focus only on diagnosing and treating disease.
The Skidegate dental clinic and other services will remain at the existing health centre on Second Avenue.
The idea behind pairing the elders housing and wellness centre, said Billy Yovanovich, is to encourage a two-way exchange.
Elders will not only get next-door health service, but as knowledge keepers, they will also help develop the programs offered there.
Built to a 60-year construction standard, the general contractor for Xaayda Naay is Port Moody-based Yellowridge Construction, which recently built the Metlakatla Seniors Housing project in Prince Rupert.
The company hired several subcontractors, some of them local, and Matt McGlashan of Haida Gwaii Builders is the site supervisor.
The Xaayda Naay building alone cost about $6.4 million, with $5 million from BC Housing’s Indigenous Housing Fund and $1.4 million from Indigenous Services Canada. BC Housing will also provide $420,000 per year in operating funds.
The Skidegate Wellness Centre building cost another $7.7 million, with $6 million in funding from the First Nations Health Authority and another $1.7 million from Gwaii Trust Society and Council of the Haida Nation.
So far, nearly all the site preparation work and road building for both buildings had to be financed by the Skidegate Band Council.
It was a major undertaking, said Yovanovich, so a number of other projects in Skidegate were put on hold to make sure the band council stays in good financial shape.
Now that the buildings are nearly done, he said Skidegate can look again at other projects, from renewable energy to cabins at Kay Llnagaay and working with Taan Forest to develop another housing or commercial property near Xaayda Naay, towards Spirit Lake Trail.
The band council plans to call residents together again soon to revise the Skidegate community plan for the next five years.