Glen Allan Sorestad was born on May 21, 1937, in Vancouver, British Columbia.

He is a Canadian writer, poet, publisher, and educator. He graduated from the University of Saskatchewan (B.Ed., 1963; M.Ed., 1976) and became a teacher of English in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. In 1969, he joined the staff of Evan Hardy Collegiate in Saskatoon. As English Program Coordinator, he established the Creative Writing program there and was a key figure in organizing the groundbreaking Prairie Writers’ Conference. In 1960, he married Sonia Talpash, and in 1975, they co-founded the literary publishing house Thistledown Press in Saskatoon. After twenty-five years as publisher, he retired in January 2000 with the publication of over 200 literary titles to his credit. He is the author of a dozen books of poetry, of many short stories, including “Wind Songs" (1975), "Prairie Pub Poems" (1976), "Ancestral Dances" (1979), "Jan Lake Poems" (1984), "Stalking Place: Poems across Borders" (1988), "Today I Belong to Agnes" (2000) and "Blood & Bone, Ice & Stone" (2005). He was also the co-editor of many well-known anthologies. Sorestad has given over 300 public readings of his poetry, visiting every province in Canada and many parts of the United States and Europe. In 2000, he was appointed the first Poet Laureate of Saskatchewan at the Saskatchewan Book Awards. In November 2001, he received the Saskatoon Book Award for his poetry collection, “Leaving Holds Me Here”. He was awarded the Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal in 2003 and Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012. He lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

The Sons of Scotland Benevolent Association was established in 1876. Originally consisting of only three “camps”, or groups of members, the Association spread throughout the Dominion of Canada. The three original camps were Robert Burns Number 1, Robert the Bruce Number 2, and St. Andrews Number 3. In 1878 these camps created a central governing body to be called the “Grand Camp”. The purpose of the Grand Camp was to ensure harmonious communication between the camps of the growing Association and to provide an administrative head for their objectives. For a short time, the Grand Camp met annually, but in our collection the various constitutions and ritual books show that it met once every three years. According to the Sons of Scotland website, a two year cycle was adopted in 1895 and a three year cycle adopted in 1939. 38 of the 66 Grand Camp Sessions have been held in Toronto- the birthplace of the Association.

Originally a male-only fraternal association aimed at supporting Scottish immigrants to Canada, the Association was beneficial to the Scottish community in other ways. This Association was charged with the duty of providing various types of insurance policies to Scottish newcomers in Canada. Furthermore, insurance plans were created to aid the sick, poor, widowed, and orphaned members of the Canadian-Scottish community. These plans also served as a level of economic security for Scottish communities in the case of the death of loved ones. The plight of immigrants was often partially alleviated through these programs. Women were especially supported through these plans as widows or mothers. Scottish-Canadian women were granted official membership in 1909 even though they have played a peripheral role in the Association since its beginning.

Membership was the most important part of the Association. Membership sparked insurance policy subscribers and provided the financial backbone of the S.O.S.B.A. At the beginning, there were only a few hundred members. In the early 1900s, that number had increased to thousands of members. In 1893, a mere 18 years after its establishment, the funds relating to insurance policies amounted to $1,090.00. In 1916, the bank balance totaled more than $500,000. According to the Sons of Scotland website, funds total of over 9 million dollars.

The Sons of England Benevolent (or Benefit) Society was founded in Toronto in 1874 to provide cooperative insurance and purchase of burial plots. Organized into local lodges, the Society served mainly working class families. Montreal Lodges provided plots in Lakeview and Mount Royal Cemeteries. The Society ceased operations in 1971.

Sonde was a music design and performance ensemble based in Montreal who explored the relationship between sound, music, space and time. Sonde members were inspired by Italian composer Mario Bertoncini who taught a Music Design course in McGill’s Faculty of Music in the early 1970s. Bertoncini proposed that composition begin before the instrument, requiring the composer to explore the acoustic properties of materials and structures and invent new instruments as part of the creation of a new composition.
Sonde was formed in 1975 and originally called MUD (an abbreviation of Musical Design). MUD gave their first performance in 1975 at Pollack Hall, McGill University in Montreal. Sonde’s instruments (sound sources) were designed and constructed by members of the group. The original members of MUD were Andrew Culver, Pierre Dostie, Chris Howard, and Charles de Mestral.

Richard Jerome Sommer was born on August 27, 1934, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

He was a Canadian professor, poet, and environmentalist. He was educated at Harvard University (Ph.D.) and was a Professor of Creative Writing in the English Department at Sir George Williams University in Montreal (later to become Concordia) for 34 years. He served three decades as a volunteer game warden in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, where he led a citizens' environmental group in a seven-year battle, ultimately successful, to save the Townships' Pinnacle Mountain from developers. Sommer was an accomplished flautist who, in his later years, volunteered in hospitals and personal care homes, playing for the sick and elderly. He published ten books of poems, including "Homage to Mr. MacMullin" (1969), "The Blue Sky Notebook" (1974), "left hand mind" (1976), "Milarepa" (1976) and "Fawn Bones" (1986). In 2004, Sommer, a Buddhist, was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and the verse journal "Cancer Songs" (2011) was an important part of his response to this challenge.

He was married to Victoria Tansey for over forty years. He died on February 13, 2012, in Sutton, Quebec.