Celebrating Canada’s 150th at the public library

As I sit here eating my bowl of special red Canada 150 Fruit Loops, I’m remembering back to the centennial year of 1967. As a child it seemed like such an exciting year with so much going on, including a family holiday to Expo67 in Montreal. 50 years later the country is marking the sesquicentennial with many activities planned across the country, especially on Canada Day.

The public library is getting into the spirit too. The first event was held at the end of April when the library joined more than 1,800 other venues across the country taking part in the Canada 150 film day where over 125,000 people came together to watch Canadian-made films.

Just this week the library took part in the nation-wide Canada Coding Week by offering two programs: building a Candarm2 and a hockey game — very Canadian, eh? And Vern Hyde presented a travelogue of his cross-Canada bike trip.

The summer programmers are busy planning for the TD Summer Camp where the theme is to explore Canada during this special summer. Lots of fun activities being planned; registration for the program takes place on June 17.

The library has joined a cross-country letter writing campaign where each month people participating in programs or just dropping into the library will be encouraged to fill out a letter that will be sent to other participating libraries. Our first partnership is with a library in Nova Scotia and as we send them our letters we look forward to receiving letters written by the people who use that library. Watch for our display of the letters.

On June 30 we are celebrating in style with a “Happy 150 Canada” tea complete with birthday cake — be sure to wear red and white when you come to join us between 2 and 3:30 that afternoon. If you are a senior you are also welcome to celebrate the birthday on June 20 at 2 p.m. as the monthly Seniors Café Chat takes place with a couple of entertaining speakers along with coffee and cake.

Each day through the month of June we are building up to the big event on July 1 by featuring a different Canadian book through our social media connections. We are making a list of 150 Canadian fiction, nonfiction, and children’s materials — there’s another challenge, to see how many of them you can read this year!

The Library will be at the Canada Day celebrations where free membership cards will be available so be sure to drop by the booth.

The annual paperback exchange and Monopread programs will be taking place through the summer and you are always welcome to stock up on materials to take with you on holiday — or access any of our range of electronic resources, including the very popular Hoopla.

Speaking of books, the Friends of the Library held another very successful book sale during the Spectrum Festival and here is a message from Ken La Hay, organizer of the sale: “On behalf of the Friends of the Library I would like to thank all those who helped make our Book Sale another success. Thanks to the young men from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints who did much of the heavy lifting, to the ladies from TELUS who sorted and displayed the books, to REDI Enterprises who sent volunteers, and to the many other ladies and gentlemen who gave their time to help out with this worthwhile event. Thank you also goes out to those who come to the library to purchase the books at the sale. All funds raised go to support events and programs at the library. Again, many thanks to all!”

And our thanks to the Friends and everyone who uses and supports the library. Happy 150th! Happy Canada Day to you all.

Keith McLean is a library assistant at the Medicine Hat Public Library.