A new addition -- with a story
You may have noticed that we have a new addition to the library – if you haven’t been here lately, you’ll come face to face with it when you walk in. It’s our new Olympic Inukshuk.
When Whistler’s Olympic Information Centre closed several weeks ago, VANOC needed to find new homes for the wealth of information it contained. Whistler Public Library was the lucky recipient of many of the displays and informational books, and also of the inukshuk.
The display materials are all located near the Reference area of the library. These consist of large hinged panels with information about the Olympic venues and the events that will take place next year, in both English and French. On the shelves nearby are several binders detailing thousands of facts and figures about the upcoming Games, as well as books about Olympic history. All these books are for use in the library only, so that everyone can have access to them.
The inukshuk, though, has a wonderful story attached to it – one of which I was completely unaware, though I saw it outside the Olympic trailer almost every day. It all started on April 23, 2005 with the unveiling of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games emblem, a stylized inukshuk. A group of Grade 6 students from Jimmy Hikik Ilihakvik school in Kugluktuk, Nunavut were inspired by the emblem; with a teacher’s help, they came up with the idea to build an real inukshuk for VANOC. The students worked with elders to learn how to build one; then the pieces were disassembled, labeled, and transported to Whistler where the students rebuilt the inukshuk for the Olympic Information Centre on October 22, 2005. This was one in a series of events that made up Aboriginal Youth Cultural Sharing Day. The Inuit students from Nunavut were joined by youth from the Lil’wat, Squamish and Tseil-Watuth Nations for a day of cultural exchange, and the inukshuk was the centre of it all.
The move from the Information Centre to the library, though it was short, was not easy. The stones that make up the piece had been mortared together, but most of them broke apart in transit. I’d like to thank Alix Nicoll and Mayor Ken Melamed for the energy and expertise we needed to put everything back the way it was meant to be. When you come in, ask to see the photos of the original Aboriginal Youth Cultural Day and also of the recent reconstruction. Please look but take care not to touch the inukshuk – it’s still quite fragile. We aren’t sure how long it will stay with us, but we’ll enjoy it while we have it. Maybe we’ll add our own chapter to its story.
Lauren Stara, Library Director
Add A Comment
