To build a home in Nome, Alaska, is to take an encyclopedia’s worth of knowledge about ideal construction conditions and heave that text directly into the Bering Sea. From erecting wooden structures on subarctic tundra to eating the exorbitant costs required to ship materials to the wind-whipped coastal city that’s inaccessible by road, the challenges in homebuilding there are innumerable. And that doesn’t even account for an igloo-sized elephant in the room.