Moving effortlessly and with great success between different activities, perhaps his biggest accomplishment was his work in the Eastern Arctic of Canada, developing Inuit art.

Houston recognized its aesthetic appeal and returned to the Canadian Handicrafts Guild, in Montreal, with roughly a dozen small carvings, done mostly in steatite.

The guild secured a federal government grant of $1,100 and sent Houston back north in the summer of 1949 to make bulk purchases in various communities in the Eastern Arctic.

The government put more resources into developing an art and handicrafts market in the Arctic, hiring Houston to live in Cape Dorset as the first "roving crafts officer", and tapping him to write promotional material for sales in the south.

The guild's fall sales exhibitions became annual affairs, with lineups routinely stretching out the door and down the block on Peel Street.