The Lheidli T’enneh Band, previously the Fort George Indian Band, are Dakelh and Carrier people who lived where the Nechako River joins the Fraser River, and traditionally included the city of Prince George, BC. Lheidli T’enneh means “The People from the Confluence of the Two Rivers.
The band used temporary and seasonal settlements across their territory, and archeological evidence shows fishing camps along the Nechako and Fraser rivers as well as in the Beaverly area. The Lheidli T’enneh did not have permanent settlements in what is modern day Prince George until the 1820s arrival of the Hudson’s Bay Company post, Fort George, after which they also began keeping gardens.
The band government focuses on:
Natural resources and stewardship, including hunting permits, lands, fisheries, and related laws.
Community services, including health, family development, employment and training, social assistance, and education.
Engineering and operations, including ancient forest enhancement, infrastructure asset management, housing, IT, and water treatment.
The community also has an Elders society whose purpose is to protect and encourage Lheidli T’enneh traditions, language, and culture through access and education.
About the library
In a partnership, Write to Read BC and the Lheidli T’enneh Band are designing a library. As the project continues, the library may be installed in 2025 or 2026.
When Gitsegukla elementary school principal Louise Ormerod talks about her school’s journey from failure to success—not just for the Kindergarten to Grade 7 students, but also for adult learners in the community—Write to Read BC gets part of the credit.
School risked getting shut down
In 2018 the BC Ministry of Education assessed the school. It failed. The ministry said the school would be closed if it didn’t resolve the 21 violations ministry auditors found. The community also knew the school was poor. Some families left the community so their children could get an education. New teachers quickly left.
But two years later, when auditors returned, they found a vast improvement. The school was “teaching to the curriculum” and meeting BC Ministry of Education standards. Auditors observed the school had found the resources every elementary school needs. Literacy rates increased 400%. Teachers stayed.
Ministry auditors told Ormerod that hers was the only audited school that did not have a single violation that year. Ormerod credits her staff and the community’s commitment to saving education in their community. She says Write to Read BC not only played a role, but made it easy, by being prpared and by knowing who to call to solve various problems. As for the library Write to Read BC installed, Ormerod says, “we had the best library and learning centre we could have ever asked for to support that learning.”
The story on video
In this 9½-minute video of an online talk, Ormerod tells the story of her school’s journey.
School principal Louise Ormerod talks about improving literacy and numeracy at her school.
Ormerod also gives advice to other schools who want to develop a library of their own:
Give the library a formal opening, with all the fanfare it deserves, to acknowledge the accomplishment. Gitsegukla school missed theirs because of Covid-19 restrictions.
Identify a champion who’s passionate about maintaining the facility once it’s launched.
Open the library after hours, so adult community members can use the library, and can attend online courses by using the library’s learning centre.
Get trained to manage a digital lending system.
Ormerod credits the expertise and connections of Write to Read BC’s volunteers, and the fundraising efforts of the Rotary Club for helping to make success possible for Gitsegukla Elementary and the whole community.
Success despite COVID-19
The community, the school, and Write to Read BC installed a library while complying with COVID-19 restrictions. The shelving, furniture, books, and computer equipment were installed during a school holiday, because students were offsite then. Obviously, the out-of-town volunteers could not socialise or stay with community members.
Write to Read BC volunteer Margaret Fletcher will speak to the Community-Led interest group of BC Library Association, or BCLA. Fletcher will discuss how Write to Read BC partners on projects in isolated communities across BC. She’ll also talk about the impact these projects have on social barriers and reinforcing community culture. This includes the installation of Internet-connected computers that provide remote access to courses and conferences through these learning centres.
The association’s interest group meets quarterly, with its next meeting in December.
The BCLA Community-Led interest group is about a community-led service approach, which consists of community consultation, needs assessments, metrics, and ongoing monitoring of services and programs. The interest group’s members want to connect and collaborate with community members to better support their needs.
At its core, the community-led model is about reducing or eliminating barriers to library services and programs. Another key factor to the community-led approach is staff training and development within the communities.
Write to Read BC has been selected to participate in a panel discussion at the conference for Libraries, Archives and Museums Nova Scotia (LAMNS). The panel will discuss its partnerships with isolated BC communities to install indigenous-led libraries.
The panel takes place on Friday, October 22, and includes our co-lead Bob Blacker, co-lead Dr Shirley-Pat Gale, and volunteers Louise Ormerod, Sarah Dupont, and Gordon Yusko.
The conference theme is Moving Forward Together: Collaboration and innovation to meet changing needs. The theme highlights the resilience of the three sectors—libraries, archives, and museums—as they developed ways to collaborate with communities from a distance due to Covid-19.
Several members of isolated BC communities attended a virtual conference about Indigenous communities. The conference, sponsored by Libraries, Archives and Museums Nova Scotia, included breakout sessions.
During the breakout sessions, members discussed their experience with Write to Read BC, and made new connections with people from Indigenous communities in other provinces.
Virtual conferences don’t just give remote attendees access to people in other communities. They expose attendees to other ideas and perspectives, and to a broad body of knowledge and potential for collaboration.
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.
Spurred by the Write to Read BC library projects in Toosey and Stone, Indigenous community Nemiah Valley, has approached us about a community library.
Nemiah Valley, BC, is home to the Xeni Gwet’in band of the Tsilhqot’in people. This community is on Chilco Lake, a 4½-hour drive from Williams Lake. This has logistical challenges for the project.
Members of the Rotary Club relayed to us that community members are very excited that something like this is available to them.
Dr Shirley-Pat Gale, our co-lead, has made contact with the community, and will help set up an initial meeting in which the community can tell us what they want from a library.
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.
In her 2013 annual statement, Judith Guichon, lieutenant-governor of BC, said she will continue to build on the literacy program developed by Steven Point, the preceding lieutenant-governor of BC.
Point developed the Write to Read BC project by partnering with several Rotary Clubs in the province.
Steven Point (middle) pictured in a newly installed library. Point was lieutenant-governor of BC from September 2007 to November 2012.
