Larga Kitikmeot boarding home in Yellowknife to open in 2027

Larga Kitikmeot, which provides accommodation for Inuit travelling to Yellowknife for medical care, has listed its current boarding home for sale as a larger replacement could open next summer. 

The three-storey boarding home at 5602 50 Ave., owned by Kitikmeot Corp. and Nunasi Corp., was listed online Tuesday for $4.25 million.

A design rendering shows Larga Kitikmeot’s new 75-room medical boarding home under construction at 346 Borden Dr. in Yellowknife. (Photo courtesy of Kitikmeot Corp.)

The new 75-room facility under construction at 346 Borden Dr., a six minute drive from the current facility, is intended to relieve years of overcrowding.

“We’ve been at overcapacity at Larga Kitikmeot in Yellowknife and have been for many years,” Larga Kitikmeot president Casey Adlem said in an interview Wednesday.

The current boarding home has 28 guest rooms and can accommodate about 56 people. Demand has reached 120 guests in a day, which requires residents to be booked into nearby hotels.

“However, there’s a lack of accommodations in Yellowknife with the tourism season, as well. We’ve needed a new, larger boarding home for a long time and that’s what’s driving the project,” said Adlem. 

Development approvals were completed in late 2025 with the City of Yellowknife and site preparation began in December.

The location is quieter and will place guests closer to Stanton Territorial Hospital and the Yellowknife airport, Adlem said.

The new building will have 75 rooms, 16 accessible rooms, larger common spaces, children’s indoor and outdoor play areas and private washrooms in every room.

“Currently, everybody has shared washrooms, which is not ideal at all. Just the fact that people can have their own privacy is going to make things much better, much more comfortable for people,” Adlem said.

So far, the building’s steel frame is complete, concrete floors have been poured and crews are installing sanitary and communications lines before enclosing the structure for winter work. 

Construction remains on schedule for a late summer 2027 opening, she said.  

Adlem said more than half of the company’s 28 to 32 staff are Inuit, many from the Kitikmeot Region, and the organization aims to maintain that as it expands. 

The existing boarding home will remain open until the new facility is ready, as additional staff are hired to help with the transition next year, she said.

“It’s important to put everybody together and have that kind of community around you, especially when you’re away from home,” said Adlem.  “So to be able to have everybody under one roof, to be there to support guests, provide the services that they need to feel comfortable and safe, it’s going to be so much easier for us.”