Meet the owner of Yellowknife’s online second-hand bookstore

Bloomin’ Sally’s, which bills itself as Yellowknife’s online used bookstore, opens its virtual doors at the start of May.

Kathryn Patel says she has spent years amassing a collection of books that she’s keen to open up to Yellowknifers after an experiment on Facebook Marketplace last year went well.

For months, she says, the idea to open an online store was “like an earworm that just didn’t go away.”

Patel has been gradually posting previews on Instagram of the kinds of book she intends to stock.

We asked her about the store’s name, her vision for it, and whether she might one day turn it into a bricks-and-mortar second-hand bookstore.

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This interview was recorded on April 20, 2026. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Ollie Williams: Tell us where this idea came from.

Kathryn Patel: I’ve been in Yellowknife for about 11 years and I have been asking myself: How come we don’t have a used bookstore?

We have an awesome indie bookstore. I love our bookstore. We have great thrift stores and a really rich community with little free libraries, which are just amazing. But we are missing a used bookstore.

I’ve always been a bookworm. I’ve always done bookish things. About a year ago, I did a bookshelf clearout through Facebook Marketplace and it was quite well received, and I had a great time connecting with people. We developed friendships through that, so it was really, really great.

For a couple months after I did that, it was like an earworm that just didn’t go away. What if I could turn this into something? What if I can expand this and be the person that creates that platform for people that want to sell, trade and donate their used books in the community?

How is this actually going to work?

It is an online platform. Folks can place orders online 24/7, just like any online platform, and they can opt to have their orders delivered to them for free on Wednesday evenings or Sunday afternoons.

If that doesn’t work for them, they can schedule a pickup as early as six o’clock on the same day.

If people are not in Yellowknife, I offer Canada-wide shipping for a flat rate of $15.

Are you going to be a miniature Amazon in Yellowknife with your own warehouse and row upon row of books?

That’s a very good question. Right now, the books are stored on quite a few shelves in several different rooms within my home.

I will also provide people the option to sell, trade or donate their books, and if that is something they want to do – if they want to clear out a room or their own shelves – then we’ll coordinate a time and I will go and pick up books from people.

Do you imagine this ever becoming an actual space where people come in?

That’s certainly something I want to work towards.

A really great thing about the online space is it’s accessible to people that may not be able to come into a store. So that’s one thing I really wanted to focus on. But certainly, down the road, that is on my radar.

What is the place of the used book in 2026? We’ve got the bookstore, the library, Kindles or iPhones, the Co-op’s free book shelves, little free libraries. What makes you think there is a space here for this?

For me, the really big thing that stands out is the fact that it’s curated. Every book in my selection has been handpicked by me. I’ve gone all across Canada looking for these books, whether it’s on vacation or online, and I brought them here to create that collection.

A really cool thing about a used book that I love is that after someone purchases a book, that used book can stay on that person’s shelf if they’re buying it for the specific purpose of collecting, but it can also go out into the world again to have a second life, to have a third life.

Explain the name.

I really wanted something that had northern roots.

I started thinking about the different things I love the most about Yellowknife and the North, and one of those things is the fireweed. I love seeing fireweed on the road. I love how they pop up in random places or right beside asphalt, it’s amazing.

When I went down that rabbit hole, I learned that a Blooming Sally is another name for fireweed. As soon as I said it out loud, I could picture Bloomin’ Sally coming up to Yellowknife in the 1930s with a sack on her back, opening up a store. It really resonated.

What’s the launch plan?

On May 1 it will be live. I’m excited. It’s really nice to see everything come to fruition and all of these ideas I’ve had in the past year become a thing.