A striking feature of all Indigenous architecture was the consistent integrity between structural forms and cultural values. The wigwam, tipi and igloo were highly evolved building-forms perfectly suited to their environments and to the requirements of mobile hunting and gathering cultures. The longhouse, pit house and plank house were diverse responses to the need for more permanent building forms.

In addition to meeting the primary need for shelter, structures functioned as integral expressions of their occupants’ spiritual beliefs and cultural values. In all six regions, dwellings performed dual roles — providing both shelter and a tangible means of linking mankind with the universe. Building-forms were often seen as metaphorical models of the cosmos, and as such they frequently assumed powerful spiritual qualities which helped define the cultural identity of a people over hundreds or even thousands of years.

Eastern Woodlands

Eastern Woodland Indigenous peoples belong to two unrelated language families, Iroquoian and Algonquian. At the time of European contact, Iroquoian-speaking peoples, including the Haudenosaunee and Huron-Wendat, occupied much of what is now southern Ontario, northern Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York, and the St. Lawrence Valley as far east as the present-day Québec City area. Algonquian-speaking peoples, including the Ojibwa and Mi’kmaq, extended from Lake Superior north of Lake Huron to the Ottawa Valley (see Ottawa River), and east through present-day New England and the Atlantic provinces.

Iroquoian Longhouse

The characteristic Iroquoian dwelling was the longhouse, a long and narrow structure that was home to several related families. The rectangular structure was constructed of a double row of saplings, driven into the ground, bent towards each other, and tied at the top to form a flexible barrel-vaulted (deeply arched) frame. Sheets of bark were fastened between the poles, and additional saplings were attached horizontally on the outside for reinforcement. Posts down the centre might provide additional support for the roof, with holes in the roof venting the smoke from hearths inside. Sleeping platforms were arranged along the long walls, with a space for storage and door at either end.



The Iroquoian villages and their longhouses are known from archaeology and from the descriptions and drawings of early European visitors. Explorer Samuel de Champlain wrote in 1615 that one village had “two hundred fairly large lodges.” The best known reconstruction of a Huron-Wendat longhouse is at Ste Marie Among the Hurons, near Midland, Ontario, at which Dr. Wilfrid Jury of the University of Western Ontario’s Museum of Ontario Archaeology attempted to replicate the early-17th-century Jesuit mission. (See also: Lawson Archaeological Site; Mailhot-Curran Archaeological Site; Dawson Archaeological Site; McDonald Archaeological Site).

Life within the longhouse was communal, and the structure was a microcosm of Iroquoian society. The people used the longhouse as a metaphor for life. The League of Five (later Six) Nations called themselves the “people of the longhouse” (see Haudenosaunee). The westernmost nation of the confederacy, the Seneca, were known as the “keepers of the western door,” the Mohawk were the “keepers of the eastern door,” and the Onondaga in the centre were the “keepers of the fire.” Although traditional building techniques were largely lost when the Huron-Wendat and other Ontario Iroquoians (see Neutral Confederacy) were dispersed and nearly destroyed by the Haudenosaunee, many of those who live on the Six Nations reserve near Brantford, Ontario still consider themselves to be the “followers of the longhouse.”

Algonquian (Conical) Wigwam


Mi’kmaq and other Algonquian peoples generally preferred a conical design to their wigwams. Typically four poles 4 m long were lashed together at the top, and the other ends were inserted into the ground. Additional poles were placed between the principal ones, converging at the top. The outer covering usually consisted of sheets of birchbark (see Birch) sewn together, but skins, woven mats, or evergreen boughs were also used. One or more rings of stringers reinforced the cone and held down the bark. The interior was a single space divided into several functional areas. The hearth occupied the centre, and cooking equipment hung from a rack below the smoke hole. The floor was covered with interlaced scented fir boughs, and furs were placed on top of these for sleeping. Possessions were stored around the perimeter.

The Mi’kmaq winter camp consisted of one or more wigwams in the occupants’ family hunting or trapping territory. Summer settlements were arranged informally and may have extended along a section of coast or river bank.

Conical wigwams similar to this were built by Algonquian groups to the east, north and west. The groups who adopted this form include the Beothuk of Newfoundland, who built a polygonal mamateek, or winter wigwam. A mamateek is seen in a drawing of the 1820s by Shawnadithit, the last Beothuk. They also kept smaller conical summer mamateek, and rectangular smokehouses (drying houses) for venison.


The term “Subarctic peoples” describes a number of different and unique groups, including the Dene, Cree, Ojibwa, Atikamekw and Innu. The Subarctic region consists largely of a five million square kilometre zone of boreal forest extending from the arctic tundra south to the mountains, plains and deciduous forest in the mid-section of the country. West to east, it extends from the Bering Sea to Labrador.

Domed Wigwams

The Cree of the North, who inhabited areas from Great Slave Lake to Hudson and James Bay, made use of a similar house-form to the Algonquians in the Eastern Woodlands. So too did the Ojibwa, who lived between Lake Huron and in the eastern Prairies.

The difference was that they typically built circular, elongated and domed wigwams, usually as winter dwellings, and clustered in settlements. Cut saplings were set upright into the ground at intervals of about 60 cm. Opposite poles were bent towards the centre and their ends tied together with strips of wood. Horizontal members were added to strengthen the stressed frame. The lower portion might be sheathed with a row of mats woven from cattails, the upper part with sheets of bark. A smoke hole was left in the centre of the domed roof.



The Plains

The Canadian prairies mark the northern edge of the Great Plains, a vast region bounded on the west by the Rocky Mountains and extending southwards to the Texas panhandle (see Prairie West). Until their eradication in the mid- to late 19th century, the region was home to vast herds of North American bison, and to distinctive Indigenous cultures — such as the Siksikaitsitapi (Blackfoot), Cree, Ojibwa, Assiniboine and Dakota — that were shaped by a dependence upon these animals. (See Indigenous People: Plains).

Plains Tipi





All aspects of tipi construction were performed by women, who debarked, smoothed and dried the numerous poles required for each tipi. The number and length of poles varied among nations and individual owners, a primary consideration being the owner’s wealth as judged by dogs or horses. A medium-sized Siksikaitsitapi tipi required about 20 poles averaging 7.5 m in length. Tipi covers were assembled from the tanned hides of bison cows that were killed in the spring or early summer when the fur was thinnest. These were cured then meticulously sewn with split sinew to achieve the precise semicircular shape dictated by the intended size and configuration of the tipi. Holes were cut along the outer perimeter of the cover to accommodate pegs which held the tipi close to the ground (stones were used in windy locations and for winter encampments). Smoking the interior of the finished tipi prevented it from hardening or cracking after a rain.





Although the Plains culture blossomed with the acquisition of horses and rifles, its survival was undermined by other aspects of European immigration. The loss of the bison herds, in the second half of the 19th century, had a devastating impact on the Plains Indigenous peoples. For a while they managed to cope, altering their diet and substituting canvas for buffalo hides for tipi covers. But they eventually lost their self-sufficiency, were forced to abandon their traditional semi-nomadic way of life and to move onto defined reserves (see Numbered Treaties). Gradually, the tipi gave way to imposed architectural forms associated with a sedentary existence.

The Plateau

The central plateau region of British Columbia is bounded by the Rocky Mountains on the east and the Coastal mountain range on the west. This broad area is characterized by sharp contrasts in both climate and terrain: scorching summers and harsh winters; vast forests of pine, spruce and fir alternating with semi-arid expanses of grass and sage. For thousands of years it has been home to various Salish-speaking peoples including the Tsilhqot'in (Chilcotin), Lil’wat (Lillooet), Nlaka'pamux (Thompson) and Shuswap. (See Interior Salish).


Pit House

Pit houses were broadly characterized by a log-framed structure built over an excavated floor and covered with an insulating layer of earth. Some ethnologists (see Urgent Ethnology) have speculated that the prototype for semi-subterranean dwellings of this type originated in northeastern Asia. They believe that it was transferred to North America during migrations across the Bering land-bridge (see Beringia), then was gradually diffused throughout the continent, appearing first in the Arctic with the whale-bone house of the Thule peoples, then as the pit house of the plateau, and subsequently as the earthlodge of the American Plains and other pit house variants in the American southwest. Regardless of its origins, the pit house is regarded as perhaps North America’s oldest house type, and it was widely used throughout the plateau region until its eventual disappearance in the late 19th century.


The pit house ladder was once the object of artistic attention. Its top might be carved into the head of a bird or animal and painted to represent the guardian spirit of the head of the household. A central hearth was located near the foot of the ladder — usually on its north side — and a stone slab protected the ladder from burning. When covered with a layer of snow, the insulating efficiency of the pit house meant that only a small fire was required to warm the interior.

Although pit houses had no interior wall partitions, they were nevertheless divided into four areas defined by the location of the four main posts. This division corresponded with the Nlaka’pamux’s cosmological view of the world as a huge, circular lodge that was divided into four compartments; after death, the soul crossed a river to the afterworld, which was also conceived as a large, round dwelling.


Northwest Coast

The First Nations cultures on the West Coast of present-day British Columbia were shaped by the unique combination of temperate rain forest and comparatively mild maritime climate. The architecture of the coastal peoples exploited the abundant supplies of western red cedar to produce a remarkable Indigenous architecture that accommodated highly developed cultural beliefs and social patterns of living.


Plank House

Most coastal peoples occupied permanent winter village sites from fall to spring and lived in either fixed or portable dwellings in the summer — sometimes taking the planks that covered the building frames from the winter houses to enclose the frames of summer houses — as they relocated to harvest sea mammals, salmon and other fishes, gather berries and hunt. The social structure of the larger villages included a wealthy elite composed of chiefs or nobles, a body of commoners, and slaves who were regarded as outside the social order. The plank houses, as their buildings are called, were integral expressions of these hierarchical cultures. Villages were dominated by the noble elites, who owned most of the houses. In addition to accommodating extended families, the houses expressed the ancestral heritage and social standing of their owners through elaborate totemic imagery in the form of carved posts, painted screens and painted facades (see Totem Pole).

Plank houses were regarded as living expressions of their owners’ prestige, family history and supernatural ancestors. They were the repositories for crest carvings and inherited or acquired treasures. Their interiors became the stages for ritual dances and dramas during midwinter festivals, and for gift-giving rituals known as potlatches that enhanced the power of chiefs and reaffirmed social relations.

The principal groups inhabiting present-day British Columbia were the Coast Salish in the south; the Kwakwaka’wakw (Kwakiutl), Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka) and Nuxalk (Bella Coola) on the central coast; and the Haida, Tsimshian, Gitksan and Nisga'a in the north. Each group developed distinctive variations on of the plank house.




Archaeological research shows us that the Coast Salish occupied extensive settlements composed of large plank houses for many millennia, with numerous village sites spread throughout the Lower Fraser Valley (see Fraser River) and lower Vancouver Island areas. In contrast to the First Nations along the central and north coast, the Salish architectural form declined rapidly following European contact, possibly due to the ravages of smallpox.




The plank houses of the Kwakwaka’wakw were essentially square, with sides ranging from 12 to 18 m, and gabled roofs. The two principal roof beams were supported by pairs of posts at the front and rear. Two additional beams at the eaves connected the corner posts. Vertical wall planks and roof planks were laid over a subframe of poles which was lashed to the frames. The Kwakwaka’wakw typically covered the gable ends facing the waterfront with vertical plank facades that occasionally rose above the roof line to create a raised pediment effect.


West Coast plank house architecture attained its greatest technical refinement in the harsher environment of the northern coast. The Haida, Tsimshian, Nisga’a and Gitskan built smaller, more tightly fitted houses than those of their neighbours to the south. Typically about 12 m2, Haida plank houses were constructed in two primary forms. The more common type was the six-beam house, so-called because the building was framed with six large, longitudinal beams which projected beyond the gable wall ends. The six-beam house displayed highly sophisticated joinery techniques. Posts were raised at the four corners, and grooves at their bases received the ends of the wall plates. Massive sloping roof plates, cut from cedar planks as large as 75 by 15 cm, were inserted through slots in the corner posts and supported at the centre by pairs of posts, against which the frontal post was placed. Six large beams spanned the depth of the house, while a seventh beam at the ridge was broken to permit an opening for the smoke hole.

The Haida also built a two-beam variant, as did the Tsimshian, who occupied the coastal area lying south of Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands) and up the Nass and Skeena Rivers. Highly characteristic features of both Haida and Tsimshian plank houses were boldly carved house posts and frontal crest columns (totem poles). Unlike their counterparts on the central coast, exterior ornamentation on these plank houses was wholly confined to these sculptural elements. The houses of high-ranking people among both the Haida and the Tsimshian contained central fire pits, with steps leading down from the main floor level.



The Arctic



Thule Winter House




Inuit Snowhouse (Igloo)

The Inuit continued the habitation patterns of their Thule ancestors until early after contact, when whalebone houses were abandoned — perhaps because of the cooling climate during the Little Ice Age of the 17th to 19th centuries. The domed snowhouse (also called an igloo; iglu in Inuktitut) became the predominant winter dwelling form. The igloo form may well have been an old one: archaeologists have found snow knives among the Dorset people, the culture which preceded the Thule, suggesting that the Dorset may have built with snow prior to 1000 AD.


A large snowhouse would house a family through the winter. Typically these might be 3 to 3.5 m high and 3.5 to 4.5 m in diameter. Smaller snowhouses — perhaps about 1.5 m high and 2 m in diameter — were used as temporary dwellings during winter hunts or journeys, sometimes only as overnight shelter.

Details of design differed from one region to another. Some used skin linings, while others did not. Entranceways might be flat-topped (as among the Inuinnait (Copper Inuit)), rather than vaulted or domed. Igloos were sometimes arranged in clusters, with a number of living chambers sharing a common entry tunnel or a communal facility, such as a feasting room or a dance house. Some clusters, as among the Iglulingmuit of Hudson Bay, might have as many as 10 domed units, each with a discrete function (e.g., living unit, dog kennel, storage).

Summer Tent

As temperatures rose above freezing, in late April or May, the snowhouse would begin to melt. The dome would be removed and replaced with a superstructure of skins, supported on the snow base. This inter-seasonal dwelling was known as the qarmaq; the name is also used to describe a hut of stone, turf or whalebone that was roofed with skins, and which might be used in autumn as well as spring.


The Inuit along the Labrador coast, as well as some central groups, built tents with a conical rear portion and a triangular entrance area, with a horizontal ridge-pole between the two. This division into a longitudinal entrance and circular living space duplicates the plan of the snowhouse.

The form of the tent varied among groups. The Iglulingmuit tent was simple ridge-type structure, not unlike the pup tent of today. The tent of the Inuit of the Belcher Islands, in Hudson Bay, was conical with a central smoke-hole, similar to the Plains tipi.
