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.
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.
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.
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.
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.