As part of our ongoing series speaking with members of Beausoleil First Nation (BFN), CICA spoke with Kathleen Copegog.  Kathleen is the librarian at the BFN Library. She is affectionately known by anyone who finds their way into the library as Miss Kathy.

Earlier this year, Kathleen was recognized with the “Librarian of the Year Award” from the Ontario Library Association.  It’s just one of the many awards she has received over  years in her role. Miss Kathy will retire at the end of September, so we thought it fitting to speak with her now.

She spoke with CICA board members Julia Bennett and Ines Colabrese in August.

I started in 2005 and then I took a sabbatical from work in 2016. I went to work in fly-in communities and on Manitoulin Island as administrative support in the health sector, working with other First Nations. I really enjoyed that work.

Then I fell in love and came back home, and I was supposed to live a life of leisure, eating bonbons and watching TV, but that got boring really fast. And my husband said to me, you can’t do it, can you? And I said no, I need to work. Then the librarian position came open in 2019 and I applied for the job and I got it. And so I’ve been working here again since 2019 .

Q: What did you learn from that experience with other First Nations that you brought to your position here at Beausoleil First Nation?

I learned more empathy for people. It gave me a chance to see how people work and how they need support.  I was able to provide them with measures and ways of creating a new system for themselves on how to report, what you need to do, how you need to do it in a timely fashion so that you’re not bogged down with a massive report, so you’re actually picking at it day by day. That way it’s not overwhelming.

And it actually helped them a lot to be more pro-active in their reporting as it was a large factor in securing future funding. Falling behind on reporting meant missed funding opportunities, and ultimately losing a whole lot of programs.  And we’re talking, in this case, millions of dollars that weren’t being properly reported.

As librarians, I’m happy to say though, all of our reporting is done on a regular basis. And I start reporting earlier than I’m supposed to so that when it comes time to report, it’s easy to submit.  It’s a whole different way of looking at things.  And I was glad to be able to bring that back here to have that empathy for people.

I’m not originally from Beausoleil First Nation.  I’m originally from Henvey Inlet.  But my mother married a non-Indigenous man and she lost her status rights. Through my ex-husband, I became a band member of BFN.

BFN is my home. I’ve been a band member since 1978 so it’s a long time, that’s a long portion of my life. This is my home, these are my people and that’s why I work so hard to make sure that the library is everything it can be for everybody.

Q: What do you like most about being the BFN librarian?

Of course, I like books.  But the biggest part of being a librarian for me is actually the catalog. And I love cataloguing. When I started applying for grants and proposals, the ability to do the catalog became difficult time-wise.

So I’m looking forward, when I retire, to actually coming back and saying, hey, if you need some help cataloging, I’ll catalog because I actually love to catalog. And I haven’t been able to do a lot of it because of the workload with grant proposals. When you get a grant, then you’ve got to manage it.  So there’s a lot more e-mail work than anything. You’re definitely a manager. You’re working with a lot of things other than books, but I’d like to work with books.

Q: What is your favourite book?

My favourite book ever is The Diary of Anne Frank.  And this has been my favourite book since I was a teenager. I have read that book in my life so far, probably about twenty times.  My heart aches when I read that book.  The suffering and the pain and the life loss of a young girl who was just starting out.  The part that got me the most is when somebody dies, there’s people left behind. And her father was the only one left behind. And if he hadn’t gone back to that place, he would never have found her diary.  And never been able to publish it for the world to read. And it is really one of the best books that I have ever read or ever will.  And I’ve read a lot of books.  It’s always my number one book.

Q: Where did your love of books come from?

My mom, Barbara Ann did a good job of raising me.  Every Saturday, my mother took me to the library. I read every single book of Curious George and Babar the Elephant. My mother was in the adult section getting her romance books. I would sit and read and then I would do crafts. I spent all my younger years there. And when I became too old to go with my mom, I would go to the library on my own.  So I was raised in the library.

Q: And I understand that you also love to sew.

I told my mom how much I loved sewing. So that Christmas she bought me a sewing machine. She didn’t teach me how to sew but she gave me the means to sew. I found out years later she had to work three extra hours every week for a year to pay for that silly sewing machine for me. She never told me that. She never said anything to me about how much money it cost. She worked in hard manual labour jobs. I was grateful, super grateful for my mom.

When I was at George Brown College, a reporter from the Toronto Sun asked me if I could give her my best Christmas experience.  I told her that story and she actually published it in the Toronto Sun.  I still have a copy of it. And I gave it to my mother for Christmas that year.

Q: What is your biggest achievement as the BFN librarian?

My biggest accomplishment here is the adult program that I run on Friday nights. I started that in 2019 and it was distinct to this community. We never had anything like that before. On Friday night, you think, let’s go out.  Well, you’re on Christian Island. There’s nowhere to go on Friday night other than a ride to the Lighthouse and back, right? So I created this program so that there would be a place for people that wanted to come out and hang out and chit chat about their life and create something together.

I’m very, very proud of that. And that’s one of my biggest accomplishments to keep that program running this long. Maybe I’ll come back and keep running it on a volunteer basis after I retire.  But I know for sure that I’m taking at least a two-month sabbatical from it, just to see what I want to do.

Q: What happens at the library on Friday nights?

We chat and do crafts.  It’s open to men and women, but it’s mostly women.  We used to have a male band member come in but he never participated in the group. He just used the computer. Every now and then, he would join a conversation. And he kept promising that he would come and do crafts, but he never did.  And unfortunately he passed away not too long ago. So we were really super sad to not have him here on Friday nights.

We get together and the ladies chitchat.  When somebody joins the group, they have to promise that anything that is said within the group stays within the group.  And then we create something. So if somebody has a unique crafting ability, they will bring it to the table and I’ll provide the supplies and we create something. We just have fun crafting and chit chatting and snacking.

It’s a lot of laughter and a lot of fun. And they have something nice that they can take home with them.  It’s time when they can just release all of that energy that they’ve had to hold on to all week.  It’s a lot of fun and we have a great time.

Q: What are you going to miss from your job as you retire?

I’m going to miss the people. I’m going to miss working with all the other librarians and serving on the boards that I serve on. It was really, really hard for me to leave those boards. I sat on the Ontario Library Association board and the Federation of Ontario Public Libraries board.

But I made a decision in January, because I knew I was going to retire, that I needed to step down from the boards at that time so they would have time to replace me. And that was hard because in my tenure on the boards, I’ve been able to be a part of the team that got the ministry to increase the salary supplement and the operating grant for First Nations libraries, actually for librarians everywhere, but for the First Nations libraries who haven’t had an increase since the seventies.

And I’m hoping that whoever the new librarian is, will be able to serve on those boards, or at least one of them, to make sure that their voice is heard. It’s important that we as First Nation librarians keep a spot on those boards to make sure that our voices are heard and to protect all of our First Nation libraries.

Q:  What do you see in the next generation of Indigenous librarians?

I think they’re great.  Technically, tech wise and savvy wise, they’re way far beyond us.  I’ve always had to maintain my own computers here. But they go beyond that. They’re fluent with AI. And I’m glad that I’m stepping down at this time because otherwise I would have a whole lot of new learning that I’d have to do that I don’t particularly want to do. So it’s good that the younger folks are able to bring that into the picture. They can bring the library to a whole new level.

We’re finding that people are starting to sign out books again because people are starting to yearn for that book in their hand, to hear that page turn and to see the words right in front of them rather than look at a screen.

I asked a friend of mine one time, are you using your Kindle? And she said, no, I don’t like it. I want to read a book. I want to hold the book in my hand. I want the pleasure of turning that page and seeing the story come alive.  And so, the new generation of librarians, that’s what they’re learning. You need to incorporate the computer world and the books together.

Q: Some cottagers don’t know anything about the library.

Yes, I’ve always found that a bit weird.  There’s a sign right on the outside that says library.

Whoever comes into this role should definitely work on promoting the library to the cottagers. Because the first thing when cottagers come in they say, are we allowed to be here? And I say, yes, you’re allowed to be here. Yes, you can use the computers. Yes, you can sign out books, right? Yes, you can sign out DVDs. We want you here.  You’re living on this island during the summer. You need to have a library in your life and we’re happy to be that library for you.

But yeah, I definitely think that we need to have more promotion with the cottagers.  But we do have cottagers that come in on a regular basis during the summer months and it’s really nice to see them again. You don’t see them all winter.

Q: What advice do you have for the person who takes your job?

Have empathy for everybody. That’s the biggest thing. We get a wide variety of people that come into the library.  The library is for everybody and it’s a safe place.  And I don’t want anybody to ever feel like they’re not welcome in the library. No matter what their circumstances, no matter where they’re coming from, it doesn’t matter. Everybody has a place here. We have chairs for everybody to sit on and relax and we have coffee and tea for everybody.

Also, we started a snack program this summer.  So if ever cottagers want to donate snacks for the kids, it went over better than I ever thought it would. The kids loved it. And the adults loved it. I was so surprised.

Q: What do you want to say as you leave your role as Librarian for BFN?

I just want to thank everybody who has come to the library over the year, because without patrons, we don’t have a library at all. So our job is for the patrons and the community. And I want to thank everybody for coming into the library and keeping us open for more than 50 years. We obviously work hard here, but you need the people.  And I’m so grateful for every single person that steps beyond that door.