With all our renovations happening, we have been having a few rosy reflections on the many different versions of our library that our community has had over the years.
The Fort McMurray Public Library first opened in 1965 with its first employee, Fern Brooks, manning the service desk. The little library was located inside the city’s garage in Waterways and had only one small section with approximately 3,400 books. In fact, the building didn’t even have heat, and residents had to wear their winter clothes, including mittens, when selecting materials!
Most will fondly remember our next location at the bottom of the provincial building. Since we have vacated the space, it has been altered to make more room for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and to welcome McMurray Experience.
When I was a little girl, my mom would take my siblings andme to this library location once a week, and we would crawl over each other to get the best seat on the storytime stairs, as we so lovingly called them. The programming department would often host their story times and events, so all the kids were gathered on these steps. You must wonder how many children, like us, spend week after week, summer after summer, cultivating a lifelong love of reading on those stairs.
The computer works section in our old location seems like a blast from the past now, but back then these bulky PCs were the cutting edge of technology! It was a treat for our community to be able to access such tech when a family computer was so costly at the time.
There was also the beloved fireplace in this library—a cozy space for all to come to curl up and escape into a story. It was so well loved by our patrons that we still hear some of our long-term library lovers fondly reminisce about finding an escape from our merciless winters here.
With this library location, we also had access to an outdoor section where the Jubilee Center stands now. This gave our staff the opportunity to take programming outdoors during our summer months, resulting in some fun sun-filled events like this Pet Parade.
The service desk was the last thing you saw before exiting the library. I remember visiting the desk one day when I was around eight-years-old and asking the lady working there if I was old enough to volunteer. Unfortunately, I was quite a few years off, however, I would get to work with this employee, Margaret ten years later when joining FMPL in their new location!
We were steadily outgrowing our little provincial building library, with shelves being stuffed full of materials and the lovely story time steps being filled to capacity with budding readers. So, in late 2009, we packed all our items and made our historic move to Macdonald Island. When we settled, we quickly took advantage of the extra space!
Over the past fifteen years we have added over 160,000 materials, brand new computers, tablets, board games, and many more niche items for our patrons. We have painted murals, decorated our walls with everything you could imagine including a rainbow, added a French collection, and built the Indigenous Cultural Corner; an award-winning space dedicated to helping our patrons gain a deeper appreciation and knowledge of Indigenous culture. Special guests from local legends like to globally recognized names like Arlene Dickenson and Chris Hadfield have joined us for special events. We even managed to weather a fire, flood, and provided quality services during a global pandemic!
With all the rapid-fire changes we have gone through and the many patrons who have visited us over the years, our space needed a revamp. So, be a part of our history and join us this year as we bring our ideas to life and create a space that is worthy of your everlasting patronage.
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