Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (July 05/02) - As Canada celebrated 135 years of Confederation, the Inuvik Centennial Library celebrated its 35th year.

The library opened in January 1962 when a committee was formed and funding was garnered through a Centennial projects grant.

Head librarian Nora Dixon said the people decided a library was needed.

"There was a plebiscite held to see if the town wanted a museum or a library," Dixon said.

Ellen Binder, along with Dick and Cynthia Hill, were part of the library committee who decided to build the new library in the geographic centre of town.

"At that point, one end of town was the native end and the other was the white end; they wanted to bring the two together," Dixon said.

Maggie McFarlane is working at the library this summer helping to preserve some of the valuable collection and piecing together the recent past of Inuvik. Funded in part by Young Canada Works and Heritage Institutions and the Canadian Library Association, McFarlane is hosting a weekly slideshow detailing how the town came to be.

"This library was the only Centennial project completed in the Northwest Territories," McFarlane said.

Library in back of Sir Alexander Mackenzie

There was a small library in the back of Sir Alexander Mackenzie school that had books that were brought over from Aklavik and Holman.

"They had a big drive to bring in children's books, because at first they had nothing" she said.

The committee held a funding and book donation drive that brought in many of the earlier books.

The first library was built where the youth centre is now stands, but was moved in 1996.

"This building used to be the old liquor warehouse," she said.

Dixon has been with the library since 1991 but will be retiring this year. She's seen a lot of changes over the years.

For the move, she said volunteers turned out to pass the books one by one down the sidewalk in a book brigade to the new building.

Dick Hill was the first mayor of Inuvik, the director of the Aurora Research Institute and the founder of Boreal Books. He donated his collection of books, maps and artifacts to the new library when he moved south.

"He seemed to do a little of everything and he was a very strong supporter of the library," Dixon said.

Today, the library holds original art, seven public computers and a growing collection of 45,000 books.

"Because of the added space we were able to increase the collection considerably," she said.

The library serves as a great resource for visitors during the summer months, with checking e-mail, reading up on local history or flora and fauna.

Tourist attraction

"In the summer, we very much become a tourist attraction," Dixon said.

Bev Garven will be taking over the reigns as head librarian when Dixon retires.

She says a new initiative will be an Adopt-a-Stack program where volunteers will be delegated a section of library to care for.

"You would come in and dust your books and straighten the shelves," she said.

The library is always looking for new volunteers. Dixon encourages anyone to drop by and help make the next 35 years as successful as the first.

See next week's News/North for Lynn Lau's Q&A with Dick Hill.