The new medical clinic and community center in the Pictou Landing First Nation in Nova Scotia recalls a longhouse, the traditional winter lodge of the Mi'kmaq.
Sustainably harvested spruce poles, six to eight inches (15 to 20 centimeters) in diameter, are bent and lashed together at the tops. Like a giant wooden model of a whale's ribcage, clad with rows of oversized spruce shingles, the peaked frame is an adaptation of traditional Native bent-wood construction.
