A Small Collection of Winter-Themed Stories
In 2022, a flood in the lower level of the recreation hall saw the loss of our small community library—a modest but important gathering point for community stories and shared reading. For a time, that space sat empty, and with it the informal exchanges and conversations that happened around those well-worn books. Rather than attempting to simply replace what was damaged, we began thinking differently about how stories could live and circulate.
The Winter Stories Project is the result of that shift. It is a digital library and storytelling platform that carries forward the role our physical shelves once played, while making the work more accessible and resilient. Instead of a single room, the collection now lives online, open to readers, writers, and collaborators beyond our walls.
Throughout the summer and fall of 2025, our creative spaces became sites of hands-on experimentation. A series of storytelling workshops brought community members together to explore how oral traditions and contemporary digital tools can work side by side. The focus was practical and skills-based: learning workflows, using AI-assisted prompts thoughtfully, and building the capacity to document and share northern stories in ways that feel authentic rather than imposed.
This work was supported by the Ontario Arts Council’s Multi and Inter-Arts Projects program and the Government of Ontario. Their support allowed us to respond to disruption with long-term infrastructure rather than a temporary fix. The Winter Stories Project now houses a growing collection of experimental fiction, short works, and community-created stories. The old bookshelf may be gone, but the function it served: access, exchange, and shared authorship continues in a form better suited to the future.
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