Bunkhouse 1 – Trident Seafoods | Unalaska, Alaska

When housing must arrive before anything else can begin, modular construction proves its worth. Bunkhouse 1 exemplifies this principle, delivering workforce housing to one of the most remote and logistically demanding locations in North America—Unalaska, Alaska, on the Aleutian chain.

Trident Seafoods, one of the largest seafood companies in the U.S., is developing what will become the largest fish processing plant on the continent. Before any of that work could begin, housing was needed to support both the construction crews and, eventually, the plant’s full-time workforce. Guerdon was selected to manufacture the modular housing units that would enable this ambitious vision to break ground.

The project comprises 48 modules, assembled into bunkhouse accommodations for 111 workers. These modules were built at Guerdon’s factory in Boise, Idaho, and trucked 500 miles to Seattle. From there, they were shrink-wrapped, secured, and loaded onto two barges, which were then tugged nearly 2,000 nautical miles to Dutch Harbor—a five-day sea journey through rough waters and unpredictable weather.

Installing housing in such an extreme location required intense coordination and a zero-margin-for-error mindset. In a place where there’s no running to the hardware store for forgotten parts, every detail had to be locked in before departure. Guerdon’s ability to meet the tight timelines—what the team called a literal “miss the boat” deadline—proved essential to keeping the project on track.

Set by crane in September 2023, Bunkhouse 1 stands as the first permanent structure on the site of Trident’s new Captains Bay facility. Though the broader development has since paused, the bunkhouse reflects the vital role modular construction can play in enabling progress in remote environments—getting people housed first, so that everything else can follow.