New look for school
Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services
Cambridge Bay (Jan 15/01) - A new cultural centre, complete with a climate controlled archival storage facility, is rising out of the ashes of the fire that destroyed Cambridge Bay's Kilinik high school in 1998.
The storage facility, which is fire-proof, will be the only one of its kind in Nunavut.
"That's one of the exciting things about this space," says Kitikmeot Heritage Society member David Pelly.
And after two long years of writing proposals and lobbying government, society presiden Kim Crockatt feels things are well under way
The fire, says Crockatt, meant the community had the option to start all over.
"A cultural centre built in with the library is a natural progression," she says, adding the society has been involved with Pin-Matthews Architects of Yellowknife in designing centre.
Ten years ago, when she was the librarian, Crockatt said only 300 people used the library each month, and most were non-native.
So Crockatt began running cultural programming such as oral history projects with elders. Attendance rose to between 3,000 and 5,000 people a month.
"Then in 1995 the heritage society was formed. It's hard to fund cultural projects without a formal structure."
Pelly says the society has collected a lot of cultural material over the years.
"But there was no effective way of presenting the material. That's the power of the cultural centre," says Pelly.
"The downside is that lots of raw material was lost. The upside is that we can present material much more effectively to students, visitors and the community at large."
Luckily, much of the material lost in the fire had been duplicated, and the society was able to recoup most of it.
With a January 2002 opening on the horizon, cultural centre displays are already being planned in conjunction with a Toronto design firm.
"It's a natural, really, to combine the community aspect with the school aspect," says Pelly about the centre's location in the high school.
"There are social advantages to having the community accessing the high school. With the students using the library and the elders working with the heritage society all the time, it will be dynamic on a daily basis. There's no division ... the school library, the public library, the cultural centre."
"And when you look at the plans and what they (architects) have put into it, it's very exciting."
