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Anishinābemowin name booked for future super library on LeBreton Flats

The Anishinābemowin word means "storytelling."

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The future super library on LeBreton Flats will be called Ādisōke after the project team completed a lengthy consultation with local Algonquin communities about an appropriate name for the landmark public facility.

The Anishinābemowin word means “storytelling.”

Algonquin representatives at a naming event on Thursday expressed hope that the name of the library, a joint project of the Ottawa Public Library and Library and Archives Canada, will help preserve and revitalize and their language as their communities lose fluent speakers.

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Anita Tenasco, director of education for the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg, asked the library project team to help record their dialects and support Algonquin communities in “showing Ottawa and the world that we still exist” by telling their stories.

“I trust this name will be honoured and respected for the lifetime of this upcoming beautiful facility,” Tenasco said.

Tenasco said she believes all First Nations, Métis and Inuit will feel welcomed at Ādisōke, calling the name “empowering” for Indigenous peoples.

“Our language must be spoken and heard,” said Mariette Buckshot, the language and culture coordinator for Kitigan Zibi.

The name of the facility was more than two years in the making.

Della Meness, manager of education for the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan First Nation, said there were meetings, community visits by the project team and Zoom calls going back to March 2019.

Mayor Jim Watson said choosing an Anishinābemowin name for the super library is another step toward reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.

“It is a meaningful and fitting name for this distinctive facility developed in the spirt of relation-building, active listening, decolonization and reconciliation,” Watson said.

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City council recently renamed a historic city-owned rail bridge over the Ottawa River after a late Algonquin elder. The Chief William Commanda Bridge is being converted into an interprovincial pathway in a project funded by the municipality and federal government.

The library naming event happened at the project site along Albert Street. There’s a pit there today from preliminary site work, with the construction contract still subject to a competition between three bidders.

Diamond Schmitt Architects and KWC Architects designed the facility.

The project has a pre-tender cost estimate of $192.9 million. The city went to market on the contract as construction prices continued to escalate last spring.

Simon Dupuis, the city’s manager of the super library project, said the construction tender is expected to close in late summer or early fall. The project team continues to hear about pressures related to the budget and schedule because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but staff won’t know the true effect until they see the bids come in, Dupuis said.

Ādisōke is scheduled to open in late 2024.

Federal Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna, the MP for Ottawa Centre, and Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault also attended the library naming event. Federal and city officials held the event well ahead of a groundbreaking anticipated sometime this fall. A federal election call is widely expected this month.

jwilling@postmedia.com

twitter.com/JonathanWilling

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