BLYN — The grand opening for the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe’s new library will take place next year.
The ceremony, which has been pushed from Jan. 20, now will take place in late February, Loni Grinnell-Greninge, vice chair of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribal Council, said during the Coffee with Colleen program last week.
“We’re looking to do a grand opening some time in late February,” she said. “You may have heard Jan. 20, but we had to delay it.”
The 4,000-square-foot library has been under construction at 10170 Old Blyn Road since January 2022.
“What’s awesome about this library is it’s not just a library anymore. It’s expanded to a museum as well,” Grinnell-Greninge said.
“It’s going to have an amazing set of exhibit spaces; a lot of our history, a lot of text panels. Some places you can listen in on some stories from the Klallam people and also a few artifacts that we are able to show off,” she said.
“The other thing about this museum is we are going to have a small theater space. There’s going to be about 15, 16 seats in that area so we’re able to show movies. You can watch some films about our history and the projects we’ve got going on. But also you can have small presentations there as well.”
The tribe hasn’t set up a mechanism yet for renting out the theater space, but they want to make it affordable, Grinnell-Greninge said.
The library still is going to be called Heron’s Hall because that’s what the original library was called, she said.
The theater space itself will have a S’Klallam name that translates as “House of Storytelling,” which will be visible just before you enter the building, Grinnell-Greninge said.
One of her favorite aspects of the library and museum is it will have a recording booth, she said.
“As we are growing in language revitalization, we’re going to start recording more stories, coming up with new songs,” she said. “Or if we need to re-record old songs for language projects. So we are grateful to our design team for including that.”
The tribe’s YouTube page has quite a few videos, including ones that teach people how to pronounce the days of the week, the months of the year and seasons, Grinnell-Greninge said.
“We want to be able to show everyone this is an open space, a blessed space, ready for history and learning.
“In the meantime, they will continue to have their partnership with the North Olympic Library System, including the bookmobile,” she said.
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Reporter Brian Gawley can be reached at brian.gawley@peninsuladailynews.com.
