In 1935, Louise de Kiriline Lawrence, born into Swedish aristocracy and survivor of the Russian Civil War, escaped the hustle of Quintmania after a year as nurse-in-charge of the world-famous Dionne babies and retreated to her wilderness cabin on the Mattawa River. There, she discovered birds, the life history of many of them a mystery at the time. Training herself in the art of observation and ornithology, she published ground-breaking studies and wrote six books and almost a hundred scientific and popular articles, her “loghouse nest” in the boreal forest becoming a mecca for international bird scientists and avian aficionados alike.

Stephen Saideman holds the Paterson Chair in International Affairs at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs and is the Director of the Canadian Defence and Security Network. He taught previously at the University of Vermont, Texas Tech University, and at McGill University. 

Paul is known as an expert in the history of the American Civil War, having led 62 tours of American Civil War battlefields, and has been to Gettysburg almost 200 times. He is also  a founding member of the Civil War Round Table here in Kingston, begun in 1993. He has served as Membership Chair since 2010 for the Kingston Historical Society.

John is the conductor of Orchestra Kingston, BrassWerks, occasional conductor of the Greater Toronto Philharmonic Orchestra and played bass trombone in the Kingston Symphony. He teaches theory/harmony at his home in Kingston, Ontario.

Ted Barris, CM, is a Canadian award-winning journalist, author and broadcaster whose writing has regularly appeared in the national press, as well as in many magazines as diverse as Air Force, esprit de corps and Zoomer. He has also worked as host/contributor for many CBC Radio network programs, PBS in the U.S. and on TV Ontario. After 18 years teaching, he recently retired as a full-time professor of journalism at Toronto’s Centennial College.

Ken is a faculty member and Teaching Fellow in Marketing at Queen’s School of Business. He has taught in degree programs at Carleton University, Cornell, Radcliffe and Harvard, and in executive programs at the universities of Alberta, Dalhousie, Toronto and York. He has received numerous awards for courses in Strategic Planning, Marketing, and Business Strategy. He is co-author of Canada’s largest-selling introductory marketing text, Basic Marketing.

Antje McNeely joined the Kingston Police in April 1985. As a constable, sergeant (1992), staff sergeant (2001), and inspector (2007), she fulfilled assignments in the Uniformed Patrol, Special Services, Criminal Investigations, and Professional Standards units and headed the Patrol and Executive Services divisions. In July 2011, she was appointed as Deputy Chief, and assumed operational oversight for the Kingston Police and responsibility for developing strong strategic relationships within the Kingston community.

Hugh Segal is a Canadian political strategist, author, commentator, academic, and former senator. From 1999 until 2014 he was a faculty member at Queen’s University’s School of Policy Studies. In 2003 Hugh Segal was made a Member of the Order of Canada.

He was appointed to the Canadian Senate in 2005, serving until he resigned in 2014, to become master and later principal of Massey College in Toronto, retiring from there in 2019.

Elaine Dewar is the author of seven non-fiction books, numerous magazine articles, and scripts for television. She has been honoured by nine Canadian national magazine awards, including the prestigious President’s Medal, the US based White Award for investigative journalism, awards from the Canadian Archeological Association and The Canadian Nurses’ Association, and the Hilary Weston Prize for narrative non-fiction. Most recently she was a finalist for the Governor General’s non-fiction award.