The one library on Six Nations of the Grand River territory was shut down with out warning final week, leaving workers bewildered and throwing plans for an upcoming sixtieth anniversary celebration in flux.
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The one library on Six Nations of the Grand River territory was shut down with out warning final week, leaving workers bewildered and throwing plans for an upcoming sixtieth anniversary celebration in flux.
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“We’re devastated,” Six Nations Public Library CEO Feather Maracle stated in a Fb publish on Feb. 13, a number of hours after warning tape was strung throughout the doorway to the library on Chiefswood Highway in Ohsweken.
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Maracle stated she and the library board had been knowledgeable the earlier afternoon that operations contained in the 141-year-old constructing — a transformed historic home inbuilt 1885 — could be suspended as of 5 p.m. the subsequent day.
The closure comes greater than 5 months after band councillors voted behind closed doorways to approve a movement recommending “the instant vacating of the Six Nations Public Library to help a complete structural evaluation to find out potential hazards.”
At that September in digicam assembly, Six Nations of the Grand River (SNGR) workers had been directed to “set up what instant and long-term measures are required to make sure security.”
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What the potential hazards are, and why it took band council 5 months to behave on the advice to instantly shut the library, stay unclear.
A neighborhood discover issued by Six Nations public relations coordinator Darrien Bomberry on Tuesday stated “Six Nations of the Grand River workers and Six Nations Public Library (SNPL) management have been in ongoing discussions for greater than a yr concerning considerations concerning the structural situation of the library constructing.”
Following a flood in June 2025, the Emergency Management Group really helpful that the constructing be vacated till a structural evaluation was executed, stated the discover.
“The Six Nations of the Grand River Elected Council (SNGREC) made this determination to make sure the security of SNPL workers and neighborhood members, reflecting considerations that SNPL management had raised over a number of years,” stated the discover. “The CEO communicated this determination to SNPL management in November 2025 and once more by the COO in February 2026.”
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The discover stated elected council is searching for one other house in the neighborhood to relocate the library whereas a structural evaluation is being executed.
“The security of neighborhood members, workers and guests stays a precedence,” stated the discover. “The Six Nations Public Library can also be acknowledged as a precedence for the neighborhood. SNGREC affords its honest apologies to the neighborhood for the disruption to library companies and acknowledges the challenges this momentary closure could trigger for households, learners and neighborhood members who depend on this valued house.”
Maracle was unavailable for remark earlier than press time on Thursday. In her Fb message, she advised library patrons she continues to be gathering details about what occurred and “working within the background on our subsequent steps.”
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“I’m very, very sorry,” Maracle wrote. “I do know what the library means to the neighborhood.”
Six Nations Public Library shouldn’t be a division beneath the purview of Six Nations band council, however SNGR owns the roughly 2,000-square-foot constructing and ordered the closure.
The lack of awareness left some band members venting their frustration on social media.
“That is unacceptable,” Celeste Tookoome-Hill stated on Fb.
“The library affords a lot to the neighborhood at massive. Books and information and packages and occasions at Six Nations Library are very important and necessary for everybody. We want the library.”
Together with a group of books, motion pictures and different supplies, the library affords photocopy and fax companies, analysis assist, and packages for teenagers and teenagers. The library’s on-line assets are nonetheless accessible through the closure.
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Band member Laurie A. Hill referred to as the library “a central a part of our neighborhood” and a “assembly place” for Six Nations youth.
“Not everybody can afford private computer systems and even laptops, to not point out copiers and Wi-Fi,” Hill stated on Fb.
“Not each youngster’s household can afford to place them in sports activities and drive them to practices and video games. For some children, the library is all they’ve, as a result of it’s free and a protected place to hang around.”
Band members had been left questioning what occurred to plans to construct a brand new library and information centre on the reserve, a venture that dates again to a neighborhood wants evaluation in 2009.
Design plans for the brand new library had been unveiled in 2013 however fundraising appears to have stalled.
In her letter to the neighborhood, Maracle stated Six Nations Public Library is “the oldest and largest First Nation public library on the planet.”
Established in 1966, the library was set to have a good time its sixtieth anniversary on March 3. Maracle vowed the commemoration, referred to as “Chapter 60,” will nonetheless happen.
“Undecided how, or the place we’ll be, however we are going to have a good time our neighborhood library,” she stated.
J.P. Antonacci is is a Native Journalism Initiative Reporter based mostly on the Hamilton Spectator. The initiative is funded by the Authorities of Canada.
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