Write to Read BC partner, Nanaimo Correctional Centre, has finished an order of library furniture for the Lax Kw’alaams Tsimshian Academy and Community Library. This shipment of shelves, bound for Metlakatla Pass, is now being trucked to Prince Rupert by project partner, Bandstra Transportation. Bandstra provides Write to Read BC with free trucking.
These shelves follow an earlier shipment in late 2016. The arrival of those shelves were accompanied by Write to Read BC’s library response team and Rotary Club of Mission BC volunteers. Together with Lax Kw’alaams community members and academy librarian Naomi White, they sorted and placed books onto the first batch of shelves.
There were many books left over, and the second furniture shipment to the academy will help get most of those books onto shelves. A third shipment of shelves is scheduled for the end of June 2017. Mission Rotary Club volunteers will pick up the shelving in Nanaimo, drive it to Port Hardy, and then take it to Prince Rupert on the overnight ferry.
Learning centre equipment
Also in June, Write to Read BC will ship four Hewlett Packard all-in-one computers and 4 mini pads (tablets). This will allow the academy to offer remote attendance to courses and conferences, online, from its learning centre.
An example of installed shelves in a Write to Read BC library by its library response team.
Once the library response team has finished with the library, and the computers and tablets are installed, the library will be ready for its formal opening ceremony. It’s been operating in Metlakatla since early 2015. It is 11th Write to Read BC library and learning centre.
Just south of Chemainus, BC, is the Indigenous community of Halalt, Lyackson. Write to Read BC learned about this community’s library ambitions when Ada Mawson approached us in January 2017. Ada Mawson is the Success By 6 coordinator for the area, and she accompanied us to a Halalt meeting in March.
There is a definite need for a community library.
We are now working with the community to locate a Britco module for the site. Things are moving very quickly with the community, as they have been committed to make this work and are doing everything that will ensure this will happen.
The Rotary Clubs of Steveston, Chemainus, and Parksville will be partnering on this project.
We expect the library to be ready for opening before the end of the current term of the lieutenant-governor of BC ends in late 2018.
Write to Read BC volunteers intend to visit Klemtu, BC, and are enthusiastic about the chance to meet with the community to learn about their vision and their library needs.
The volunteers are currently arranging transportation and funding for the trip, which they want to do when the weather is fair.
We hope our funder will be able to participate in the building of a Version 4 library—one that’s built on site rather than prebuilt. and then shipped.
Write to Read BC’s design response team visited Kyuquot on northwest Vancouver Island. This visit had to take place when the weather was good, as the road from Campbell River to Fair Harbour ferry is busy with logging trucks, and feels safer when dry. They were received by a band committee including Chief Peter Hanson, committee member Daisy Hanson, band administrator Cynthia Blackstone, project coordinator Russell Hanson, and others.
A view of Kyquot village when arriving by ferry from Fair Harbour.
The Write to Read BC team included co-lead Bob Blacker, architect Scott Kemp, architect intern Kelly Bapty, mechanical engineer Mike Herrold, structural engineer Melissa Kindratsky, big log builder Steve Lawrence, filmmaker Michael McCarthy, financial guru Lawrence Lewis, and master carver Moi Sutherland. During the visit, they stayed with Susan Plensky and her husband Skip.
Together, the visitors and band committee started the planning process for a library. This concept quickly grew into a community centre that contains a library—in a building that will be built onsite rather than prebuilt and shipped there.
This ambitious work was named The Big Project.
A tidal dock that leads up to a reinforced seawall in Kyquot village.
The visitors and band committee of residents toured the village, and together decided the original site for the planned library was too close to sea level and at threat from any tsunami. To find an alternative site, the entire team hiked up the hill past the school to the site of a planned neighbourhood. The engineers wanted an up-close inspection, so the entire team bushwhacked into rarely-visited forest, where the biomass underneath was 3 m deep. This is the site they found.
Site of the future Big Project, uphill from Kyquot village.
Steve Lawrence, a big log builder, announced the site was perfect to harvest the timber needed for the community centre. The village will install a mill on the site, to cut the logs themselves. The community will also consider getting involved in the construction, which removes the need to bring in, house, feed, and pay a full construction crew for the length of the project.
Community involvement
The band committee heard that the entire village must be actively involved in planning and fundraising from the very beginning of the project. If the village does not pledge enough support and primary funding, The Big Project will not proceed. Fundraising will require a wide variety of events, grants, and donations from the public and businesses.
Financial planner Lawrence Lewis explained the costs in detail. The scope and success of the project depends on how much the community gets involved. Hiring an outside construction crew is not part of the estimate, which is why the village needs to consider taking on that work.
Working together: the band committee and Write to Read BC’s design resposne team in Kyquot village.
Design and construction
The Write to Read BC volunteers left the village of Kyuquot satisfied the band has the skills and experience to take on The Big Project. The design response team prepared and published a draft design of a community centre that has a library with Internet connections for its learning centre, a kitchen, meeting rooms for elders and youth, a museum, a gymnasium, and a day care centre.
After it’s revised and agreed, the design will be handed to Write to Read BC’s construction response team and library response team for the next stages of the project.
This community of Glenn Vowell was first in contact with Write to Read BC last year. When a member of our design response team has spoke with the community’s education coordinator, Barb McRae, she quickly realised the next step is to arrange a visit to visit the community.
Glen Vowell is located inland from BC’s coast, near Kispiox, BC.
The Write to Read BC design response team wants to visit the Paachidaat community, near Port Renfrew on the BC coast. When the team visits, they’ll start discussion to develop the community’s vision for its library.
Paachidaat territory is next to the ocean and vulnerable to any tsunami, so a proper site needs to be found for a community library.
Write to Read BC withdrew its interest in receiving a building from the Municipality of Oak Bay, due to hidden costs. Our construction response team immediately identified a better financial option.
Instead, the Young Professionals of Nanaimo have decided that, for the Snunymuxw library, they will build the same solution we used for the Xeni Gwet’in library. They have already raised $25,000 towards building and met with Write to Read BC’s architect, Scott Kemp, about the design.
This BC community worked very hard to build their school, but unfortunately did not have funding for a library. Write to Read BC will visit the Stz’uminus school and meet with the principal, Tim Harris, and see what we can do.
Plans for a Xeni Gwet’in library are on track. This is our very first Version 4 library—one that will be built on site, rather than premade and shipped in. The library’s opening date depends on how the design and building proceed, and on funding for that to happen.
Before we can ask the Jack Gin Foundation to support it, our construction response team will need to determine exactly how much this library will cost to build.
The building for the Ahousaht community library is in place, and Write to Read BC’s construction response team has visited the site to view the building.
Our library response team is now putting together a collection of books. Furniture has to be made and delivered when the library response team sets up the library.
The library will likely open in the fall of 2014. It’s another success story for the partnership model, which matches communities, Write to Read BC volunteers, and other partners.
