Growing a sustainable community from our roots: Mohawk experiences in sustainable housing.

It's an early spring morning in the Mohawk community of Kahnawake as I sit here sipping my fairly-traded organic coffee. The snow has finally melted giving way to new life and sprouting growth. Cardinals, a pair of blue jays, and countless robins, are nesting in the trees around me singing their morning songs. The air is crisp outside but my bare feet are warm and toasty on the terracotta-coloured heated floor. The large south-facing windows of the house bring in the natural light and heat of the morning sun, and the thick strawbale-insulated walls further surround me with comfortable warmth. I can hear the faint lull of the high-efficiency washing machine in the next room as warm water flows to it from the solar-heated tanks on the roof. The texture of the beige stucco walls, and the natural materials, finishes and colours create a healthy, welcoming atmosphere, inspiring me to tell you more about our community and our sustainable housing project called Kanata Healthy Housing.

Kahnawake is a Mohawk community of more than 7,000 people located on the South shore of the St. Lawrence River near Montreal, Quebec. Although the traditional territory of the Mohawk people encompassed more than 9.5 million acres, the land area presently held by Kahnawake, one of several Mohawk communities, is only slightly more than 12,000 acres. In our language, the word for our nation is Kanien'kehaka, meaning "people of the flint". We form part of the Iroquois Confederacy of the Six Nations who came together in peace many centuries ago when we planted our weapons under the Great White Pine. We are also known as Haudenosaunee or "people of the longhouse," our traditional dwelling, and the seat of all aspects of our social, spiritual, and political life.

The Kanien'kehaka people now possess a lifestyle much removed from the land upon which we once relied for survival. With bordering industries such as a battery recycling plant, and the contamination of our waterway and traditional sources of food, the health of our community members is a serious concern. Asthma and more serious afflictions such as diabetes, scleroderma and cancer are prevalent in our community. Many of the health problems have also been attributed to the unhealthy building materials, techniques, systems, and finishes used in our homes, where we spend a significant proportion of our time thanks to our cold climate.

Affordable housing is developing rapidly in Kahnawake, but affordability has come with a price--homes are built with non-renewable and unhealthy building materials, relying on inefficient energy sources, and offering inadequate wastewater treatment. Trees are felled and the landscape altered; little sign of the original natural habitat remains. This approach has led to destructive environmental and health impacts, a disconnection from our environment and social and spiritual unrest; it is also setting an unsustainable precedent for future generations.

The Kanata Healthy Housing project is a labour of love and commitment to the future well-being of our community. In 1997, several groups in the community including the Kahnawake Environment Office and Kahnawake Housing Department obtained funding to address some of the current problems with our housing and infrastructure. We created a multidisciplinary team tasked with establishing a neighbourhood in Kahnawake that is sustainable, innovative, affordable, healthy, in-tune with our natural resources, and culturally and socially relevant to the community. The Kanata Team set out on a research and development journey to seek sustainable alternatives to our present housing, infrastructure and way of life.

It took two years to conduct the pre-design research. This included a significant amount of community awareness-raising and input to determine what should be included in a sustainable house. The team then hired an architect and engineer who helped to design the prototype house and neighbourhood plan. Construction of the first house began in August 2000. Local contractors were hired to complete various components of the project including construction management, framing, plumbing, electricity, and stucco.

Volunteer labour, or sweat equity, was an integral part of the project, to ensure affordable and sustainable construction. Volunteers participated in many aspects of construction including framing and interior finishing. And it was volunteer hands that built the earth block wall complete with switch-grass bale insulation. Not only does sweat equity decrease construction costs, it also, more importantly, builds family and community spirit, and empowers homeowners with a sense of accomplishment and an intimate knowledge of their home. The video we produced documents the whole process.

The completed demonstration house stands today as a beautiful testimony to the hard work and dedication of a team committed to the sustainable growth of our community. The Kanata Healthy House has a slab-on-grade foundation, bale-insulated walls covered with stucco, radiant floor heating, an interior earth brick wall made on-site, energy-efficient appliances and fixtures, and healthy materials and finishes. It also incorporates passive solar design, and solar panels to heat water and feed the radiant floor heating system.

We are offered many gifts by our elder brother, the sun. He works silently and tirelessly to help provide our food, our medicines, and our well-being. Yet, many of his other gifts go unrecognized and unused. The sun has the potential to provide us with an endless supply of clean energy to heat our homes and our water, and to provide power. Not only have we built a healthier, more beautiful, environmentally-sound and efficient home, but the gifts of the sun have also reduced our ecological footprint by eliminating the use of polluting fossil fuels and reducing our need for hydroelectricity, a far-away energy system that has devastated the environment and social structure of our indigenous brothers and sisters of the north.

I'm privileged to be living in the Kanata Healthy Home while we pursue a monitoring program to assess what's worked, and learn where our energy savings and losses are. We hope to pour our earnings from this project into the construction of more homes--in fact, we are using the local media and organizing tours to promote the concepts used in the house with our future builders and homeowners. And a ten-acre site has been dedicated for the development of the Kanata Housing Neighbourhood.

As I take my last sip of coffee, I look out to the landscape around me and envision the vibrant and healthy neighbourhood soon to take shape. We hope that by sharing the knowledge we gained from our experiences, we will inspire and empower others to bring sustainability to action in their own communities.

Katsitsaronkwas is an environmental advisor for the Kahnawake Environment Office where she coordinates the Kanata Healthy Housing Project and works towards the sustainable future of her community.