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.
One of Squamish Nation’s urban schools, Capilano Littlest Ones Xwemelch’stn School, celebrated its new library in November 2022. The school is on Squamish land in Greater Vancouver.
The school brings together 130 Indigenous and non-Indigenous students in the Norgate area of urban North Vancouver. The school and its library help break down social barriers, build bridges across cultures, and re-establish positive relationships. Capilano Littlest Ones is a community school under the auspices of North Vancouver School District.
Usborne Books at Home is funding $1,000 each for Write to Read BC’s current library projects. A discussion over the summer led to Usborne’s support for the libraries of Gitsegukla, Tsideldel, and Heiltsuk first nations.
With each $1,000 order, Usborne will also provide free shipping and a 25% credit for additional purchases. This helps Write to Read BC make cash donations go even further. Our volunteer team thanks Usborne and its local representative, Louise Toews, for their generosity.
Write to read BC volunteer Wendy Brundage visited Gitsegukla in early September, and will follow up with the Elementary School’s principal Louise Ormerod to consult on the school’s book choices.
Usborne is based in southern Ontario, and has been in business for over 50 years. It’s a past winner of Children’s Book Publisher of the Year. Its mission is to help spread a love of literacy to kids and their families across Canada.
In April, Write to Read BC members identified 10 libraries eligible for funding from the Supporting Indigenous Libraries Today foundation, or SILT. Its goal is to support Indigenous communities that do not currently have a public library, and to help existing First Nations public libraries to expand.
SILT foundation is set up by Goodminds.com, which donates 5% of sales to the foundation.
SILT supports Write to Read BC with generous funding. In Bella Bella, a Write to Read BC library received books worth $10,000 this summer. SILT also donated over $8,000 to support the Gitsegukla community library in BC with a donation of new books.
Write to Read BC co-lead, Bob Blacker, said: “The response to these books from our communities has been amazing. For the kids, it is the best part of the library. SILT is a true platinum sponsor of our project.” Blacker gives his heartfelt gratitude to Goodminds.com owner Achilles Gentle, and former owner Jeff Burnham.
Burnham is a member of the Write to read BC team of volunteers.
Blacker invites indigenous-led libraries in BC to contact Write to Read BC for information on how to access and use SILT funds for books.
The Lax Kw’alaams library, part of the Write to Read BC project, was featured in a Vancouver Sun article. It describes community reactions to the arrival of new library books.
Excerpt from Vancouver Sun, March 20, 2021.
By Douglas Todd
“Please bring us more books” First Nation librarians ask.
Naomi White still remembers her delight when she saw a barge full of books moving across the inlet to her village of Lax Kw’alaams, north of Prince Rupert.
“It was amazing,” the First Nation librarian said.
Six volunteers from Metro Vancouver helped haul in 14 pallets of books and library furniture so that about 150 school-age children in the small village, 1,000 kilometres north of Vancouver, would get the chance to enhance their literacy.
“If you don’t know how to read, you don’t know how to do anything,” White said, explaining how literacy is the key to more First Nation people advancing into higher education and holding down jobs in the trades, businesses and professions.
“We’re just so isolated here, especially during COVID. Now we’re better able to foster the love of learning. And to pass on that reading is power. The more you know the better off you are,” said White, describing how many young people in the village are keen to learn about the larger world through the library.
After a long drive from Prince George, the installation team arrived in Gitsegukla at 2:45pm on a Tuesday, ready to install a library for the school and community.
The installation took 3 days, and the efforts of an incredible group of volunteers, including members of Write to Read BC’s library response team.
A literacy-focused addition to the community.
On arrival, the library response team swung into action, with the school staff and principal Louise Ormerod. Once the furniture was unloaded, the library response team started organizing the layout of the learning centre, with its internet connection that allows remote attendance at courses and conferences..
Volunteers unloading a delivery of library books.
Fetching sponsors
On Day 1, the team started early and progressed well. Total Support Services Chief executive officer Chris Gillen made a “quick” 3-hour return trip to Terrace to fetch more shelving tabs and an HDMI cable for the TV.
Chris Gillen of Total Support helps troubleshoot the learning centre’s computers at no cost.
How Total Support Services joined Write to Read BC
At a Victoria-Harbourside Rotary Club meeting a few weeks before the Gitsegukla library and its learning centre were installed, Write to Read BC co-lead Bob Blacker was giving a presentation about the program, by video call. One of the audience members mentioned that her son-in-law was working with First Nations to provide computers, IT solutions, and training. A few days later Bob received a call from Chris at Total Support, expressing interest. As a result of this connection, Write to Read BC now has a supplier of computers and related hardware needed for learning centres. In addition, Total Support will, at no cost to the libraries—provide online support for any computer problems that surface. This has been huge for Write to Read BC, as support for computers has always been a concern; now we do not have to worry about that.
After 3 days of hard work, the Write to Read BC team, along with principal Ormerod and her staff, completed Write to Read’s very first “version 3” learning centre.
We had some hiccups over the three days, which is to be expected, but we were able to prevail. The new library and resource centre looks great.
The team was invited for dinner.
The satisfied team that installed the library and learning centre.
Gitsegukla Chief and council
Overlooking Princess Lake, the Write to Read BC team were able to meet with Chief Willie and three council members. This allowed members of the team to chat with key members of the community. The evening ended with a handshake between Chief Willie and Leader of the Write to Read BC team co-lead, Bob Blacker, cementing the agreement and the blossoming friendship and trust with Gitsegukla.
As one of the library response team members said: “This is what makes it all worth it.”
An imagineering session: What does the community’ envision next?
The evening was topped off with an imagineering session, lead by design response team member, Scott Kemp. This was also a new experience for the Write to Read BC team.
Key components of the learning centre: a large screen and a computer table.At this point still a warehouse of books, this room will soon be a classroom.
Over the next few months, we’ll be installing furniture and books at five locations, ranging from Vancouver to BC’s interior. Most of these libraries are linked to a community school or preschool, including in Squamish Nation, Tsideldel First Nation, Williams Lake First nation, and Aboriginal Mothers Care Centre.
Gitsegukla, in the Skeena region of west central BC, on the southeast side of the Skeena River adjacent to the Kitseguecla River mouth, near New Hazleton, BC.
Learning Centre at Tsideldel First Nation, located in the Chilcotin region of BC’s western central interior.
Littlest People Elementary School, a Homulchesan school in the Squamish Nation, next to the mouth of the Capilano River, in Greater Vancouver.
Aboriginal Mothers Care Centre in Vancouver’s downtown eastside neighbourhood. It’s a place where Aboriginal mothers, babies, and children can come to be together as a family.
Little Chiefs Elementary School library in Williams Lake First Nation, which is located in the Cariboo region of BC’s central interior, at Williams Lake.
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.
