Remote and rural communities located across Canada face several energy system related concerns such as high heating and electricity rates, dependence on imported energy, and low levels of energy security and autonomy. In recent years, significant progress has been made with regards to developing demand and supply-side technology-based interventions that allow remote and rural communities to address these problems in a manner that is both economically viable and environmentally sound. Two prominent interventions that fall within these categories are building-based envelope energy retrofits and biomass driven district heating grids. The former can solve many of these concerns as well as reduce fossil fuel consumption, and improve the communities’ housing stock, while the latter is a reliable and dispatchable technology that utilizes a carbon neutral energy source (i.e. biomass) that is abundantly available in heavily forested regions of northern Canada. This research explores the potential benefits and tradeoff of these interventions when implemented in Canada’s northern remote and rural communities. The MoCreebec Eeyoud indigenous community of Moose Factory, Ontario is used as the case study in the analysis. Results show that biomass driven district heating grids are an economically attractive alternative for remote community energy systems with reductions in cost of up to 45% relative to conventional diesel power generation. On the other hand, in rural community energy systems, biomass district heating grids are unable to economically outperform conventional grid electricity unless the true cost of the electrical transmission grid is considered. However, from a purely economic standpoint, it is preferable for these communities to invest in building-based demand-side interventions instead of a biomass driven district heating grid. Building-based demand side interventions such as upgraded windows and improvements in insulation to the basement floor resulted in annual energy savings of up to 15%. However, these results vary substantially depending on factors such as the community building layout, state of energy efficiency in community buildings, and the energy rate paid by residents. Results show that biomass driven district heating grids become an economically viable alternative at district heating grid linear heating densities of 0.8 MWh/m-yr or greater.