The Tsawwassen First Nation is in greater Vancouver, in BC’s lower mainland. Its name means “land facing the sea”. Traditionally, its lands covered a what is now Pitt Meadows, New Westminster, and several gulf islands off the mainland’s west coast. It has lands close to the south arm of the Fraser River, and just north of the border with the USA at Point Roberts.
Tsawassen First Nation has a youth centre on site that includes a gymnasium, weight room, art room, teen lounge, and teaching kitchen. It has areas for music, dance, and media that allow for scheduled and drop-in classes. There is after-school care for young children.
The centre also has a library.
About the library
Write to Read BC installed the library in partnership with the Tsawwassen First Nation Youth Centre.
Aboriginal Mother Centre offers housing in Vancouver, BC, for mothers and their young children, who are at risk of homelessness or child welfare intervention. The program offers suites for mothers and children under the age of nine.
The program focuses on mothers giving back to their community, for example by helping with the Elders program by serving food, cleaning up tables, distributing food to take home, and engaging with Elders.
Aboriginal Mother Centre also offers family-wellness programs for mothers to enhance their skills and abilities as parents, and help them on their life journeys. Each week, the centre also offers parenting workshops, housing- and resources workshops, life-skills workshops and self-care workshops.
About the library
Write to Read BC placed a library in the Aboriginal Mothers Centre. The library’s sponsors included the Rotary Club of Whistler Millennium.
Nisaika Kumtuks is an elementary school in Nanaimo. It opened its doors in September 2014 as is the first urban aboriginal public school on Vancouver Island. At its start, if offered children from Kindergarten to grade 4 an Aboriginal focused curriculum.
Nisaika Kumtuks means “ours to know” in the Chinook language.
The school started in the Boys and Girls Clubs of Central Vancouver Island in Nanaimo, BC, with additional support from Nanaimo Aboriginal Centre, Mid Island Métis Nation, School District 84.
About the library
Write to Read BC installed its 16th library for the students and their family members. Sponsors included the Rotary Clubs of Nanaimo and Lantzville.
Children drumming at the opening ceremony of their school library.
Previously, students at Nanaimo’s Nisaika Kumtuks Elementary Centre walked to the public library for books. After the ribbon-cutting, they had a library in their school building.
Cutting the ribbon on opening day.
The library offers tablets, computers, and video conferencing, the library has books for children and adults that students and their families can use.
Metlakatla is a small, west-coast village at Metlakatla Pass near Prince Rupert, BC.
Metlakatla village is a progressive community, 5 km north of Prince Rupert on an ancient site. For thousands of years, the Metlakatla people have lived there. Metlakatla means saltwater pass in Sm’algyax, the language of the Coast Ts’msyen (Tsimshian) people.
Metlakatla honour their history on the land. Its council oversees a number of services in the community to ensure members have the best quality of life possible, including access to healthcare, education, recreation, and social development.
About the library
This is the 10th library Write to Read BC installed, in partnership with the community. Its sponsors included Camera Buildings and Coquitlam Chrysler (Now Journey Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram).
The present-day Heiltsuk Band of Indians, formerly Bella Bella, are the main descendants of Hailhzaqvla-speaking peoples who inhabited an area of approximately 15,000 km² in the central coastal region of BC. Heiltsuk traditional territory extends from the southern tip of Calvert Island, up Dean and Burke Channels as far as Kimsquit and the head of Dean Inlet to the northeast, and up the Mathieson and Finlayson Channels to the north. It includes Roscoe, Cousins, and Spiller Inlets, Ellerslie Lake, the outer coast regions of Milbanke Sound, Queens Sound, the Goose Island Group, and Calvert.
The word Heiltsuk
Heiltsuk, according to grandmother Hilistis Beatrice Brown’s personal communication, originally referred to all Aboriginal people or groups elsewhere. For example, the Gitsxan would have been referred to as Heiltsuk. Over time, as Indian Bands and reserves were established, the present-day Heiltsuk Band was initially registered as the Bella Bella Band, then renamed to Heiltsuk as its formal Title name.
There is also reference to Heiltsuk meaning to speak and act in the right way, which reflects a traditional value that was a foundation of our principles and relations.
Heiltsuk College
The Heiltsuk College is a First-Nation-owned community college in Bella Bella. It offers post-secondary academic programs and training. Waglisla Adult Learning Centre is a seamless adjunct of Heiltsuk College and it offers upgrading programs from basic literacy to Adult Dogwood Grade 12 graduation. This educational institution has been in place for approximately 40 years and is housed in a church basement and in two aging portable trailers.
Aboriginal Student Transitions handbook
Based on the history of successful transitions of Heiltsuk College students from Bella Bella to off-reserve continued education or training, IAHLA took notice and wanted to research what made our college unique in this way. When Joann Green was an instructor, she developed a College Survival Skills mini-course that was a mandatory course for any student who planned to leave the community to attend further education or training elsewhere. Its focus is life skills training, but also gave students a practical tool for navigating systems in the city, such as the transit buses, applying for rental housing, etc. The student supports didn’t end when a student left town—they continued to be supported long distance and received encouragement, Heiltsuk food gifts, or whatever else was required to make their transitions easier. IAHLA worked together with UVIC and NVIT to do create the Handbook, and out of this came the ongoing practice of hosting aboriginal students on campuses in order to give them direct experiences and inspire them to move forward. Several Heiltsuk university students have participated and benefited from this initiative including Jessica Humchitt, who is enrolled in Health Sciences at SFU. This wrap-around service is seen as a best practice because it is a natural process that not only supports but also dignifies students.
Facing the shore is the Write to Read BC library in Bella Bella, along with a wooden deck, chairs, table of the Koeye Café. Two boats are pulled up onto the shore.
About the library
In 2019, the community planned an immediate temporary space for an Employment Centre, and a multipurpose structure that would include Heiltsuk College, MCFNTS, and Employment and Training Centre by 2020.
The Bella Bella library is the fifth Write to Read BC library. Sponsors included Rotary Club of Steveston, and Britco Structures (now Boxx Modular).
Daylu Dena, or Lower Post, are Kaska Dena, a tribal council of people in northern BC, the Yukon, and Northwest Territories. Lower Post is on the Alaska Highway, at the northern border of BC and the Yukon, near Watson Lake. About 300 people live in Lower Post. Daylu Dena are a matriarchal society with interrelated families.
Traditionally, Kaska Dena were a nomadic nation travelling across 100,000 km² of traditional territory to hunt and trap, and trade with neighbouring Nations. In some ways the nomadic life continues as community members continue to follow the seasons, and hunt and gather. Environmental protection is a focus, as is economic development.
The Daylu Dena Council runs a company that provides a broad range of construction services and heavy-equipment rental across the Yukon and northern BC, ranging from roadworks and earthworks to residential construction, and from labour procurement to environmental remediation.
The community completed a cultural and administrative centre in spring 2024—a building intended as offices for the council, and Services BC. It has a gymnasium, coffee shop, kitchen, library, and more.
The building will also house an Indigenous library.
About the library
The library that Write to Read BC installed in Daylu Dena’s civic building focuses on Indigenous books. The library opened in the spring of 2024.
The library was furnished with shelves under the contract for the entire building. Write to Read BC’s library response team helped install the books, computers, and screens.
Write to Read BC’s co-leads met to plan the installation of books and equipment in the Daylu Dena civic building by the end of the year.
The building was completed a year ago, and the community and Write to Read BC are both eager to see the library installed.
Since the library was built as part of a larger contract, it came fully finished with shelving and furniture. Write to Read library response team only needed to provide the books and computers, including a monitor. This reduced the need for financial input from Write to Read BC.
The library is on the upper level, with a glass wall to admit plenty of light.
This month, Write to Read BC’s design response team visited Daylu Dena, just south of Watson Lake, BC. Visitors included lead architect Scott Kemp and Ryan Arsenault.
For our visit in late 2023, the Daylu Dena civic building was a winter construction site.
The community is constructing a cultural and administrative building that will be completed in 2024. The building will have:
a Service BC office for driver’s licensing and other government business.
administration offices and a council chamber for Daylu Dene community business.
an adjoining room for the judge’s chamber, so the council chamber can be used as a court room.
a large gym.
a commercial kitchen and a coffee shop.
a recording studio, and language room.
An Indigenous library
Of course, the Daylu Dena civic building will also have a Write to Read BC library, the first to be stocked only with Indigenous books.
Write to Read BC volunteers inside the construction site, looking up at the future location of the library.
The library is planned for the top floor, overlooking the foyer. Its glass wall will admit lots of light.
There team will return in 2024 to help plan the library with the community.
Write to Read BC’s 17th library is getting ready for its official opening, after the recent installation of shelves and books by Write to Read BC volunteers.
Preparations involved a trip on the high seas by BC Ferry to the Nanaimo Correctional Centre to pick up furniture build for the library, and a visit to the Write to Read storage locker, provided by U-Lock Storage, to pick up a shipment of books.
The final touches: the outside of the Rocky Pines community building before the library was installed in one of its rooms.
The library response team, volunteers Margaret, Carol, Liz, and Marion, made the trip to the Rocky Pines community, sometimes called the Lower Nicola Indian Band, near Merritt, BC, where they coordinated with local volunteers to prepare the furniture, shelves, and books for the library’s opening. Other volunteers later set up the TV and computers for the library’s learning centre, which will offer remote attendance to courses and conferences via Internet.
Still to come is an amazing donation of new Indigenous-authored books from GoodMinds.com. This donation of 1,000 books for readers from pre-schoolers to adults, is an $18,000 gift to the community.
A team visit to the community centre shows it’s ready for the library response team to install the shelves, seating, books, and technology.
Write to Read BC celebrated the grand opening of its 16th library and learning centre, Nisaika Kumtuks school, the little school with a huge heart.
Lieutenant-governor of BC Judith Guichon attended, along with members of the school.
One of the students, David, greeted Guichon, before taking part in a procession. The children performed a drumming song, and read a story for Guichon. To conclude the ceremony, the school library received its formal name—one that its students chose.
In addition to books that appeal to students from Kindergarten to Grade 4, the school also offers online attendance to online courses and conferences from its learning centre. The library is equipped with four iPads, 2 all-in-one Hewlett Packard computers, and a TV with video conferencing capabilities. This benefit the students as well as their parents. School principal Heather Goodall will open the school library to parents of its students. This gives parents have access to the Internet and to online learning, as well.
The TV screen, a donation that Write to Read BC arranged, was a pleasant surprise to Goodall.
The shelving was made especially for the library by inmates at the Nanaimo Correctional Centre. Write to Read BC co-lead Bob Blacker said: “They do amazing work, and are very proud of their contribution to our libraries.”
