Showing 2264 results

Jim Clark is an award-winning photographer in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He graduated in 1971 from a Halifax Campus Community College photography course as the top student and began his career as a darkroom technician and photographer with Wamboldt-Waterfield Photography Ltd.

From 1971-1975 he worked for the Dalhousie University Life Sciences Audiovisual Department as a bio-medical photographer. He pursued freelance work from 1975-1978, while also managing a retail photography department and travelling throughout Nova Scotia and New Brunswick as a representative for Maritime Color Labs.

A year after returning to Wamboldt-Waterfield as a photojournalist in the summer of 1978, Clark became a business partner, acquiring full ownership in 1985 and changing the company's name to Clark Photographic Ltd. after Terry Waterfield's 1990 retirement. In 1998 he formed a partnership with photographer Gary Castle, and Clark Photographic became Digiscan Photographic, reflecting the changes in imaging technology.

Clark continued to work as a photographer in commercial, advertising and special events throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. From 1995-1996 he had a contract with Dalhousie's Medical Computing Media Services (later MED IT), and in 2001 he became the medical photographer and videoconferencing coordinator for Dalhousie, where he worked until 2011.

John Shenstone Roper was born in St. John's, Newfoundland, but was largely educated in Halifax, attending first Halifax County Academy and then Dalhousie University, where he earned a BA in 1910, an MA in 1911 (by examination in Shakespeare), and an LLB in 1913. He was editor of The Dalhousie Gazette and, while at law school, served as a lieutenant with the Dalhousie branch of the Canadian Officers' Training Corp (COTC). Roper practised law in Halifax for several years before receiving a commission in the 85th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. After various assignments at home, he was made an acting captain in 1917 and sent overseas in early 1918, where he fought in France and was awarded the Military Cross. He continued his military involvement after returning to Halifax, practicing law alongside serving as a brigade major and later the commanding officer of his former COTC.

He was a solicitor for the Nova Scotia Highways Board for three years before being appointed to the Nova Scotia Public Utilities Board from 1928-1938. He sat on the Board of Governors for Dalhousie University, served as secretary-treasurer of The Dalhousie Review, and was a longtime member of the Dalhousie Alumni Society. He also was president of the Studley Quoits Club for some time in the 1930s.

John Roper was married to Gladys Una Smith in 1915, whom he met when they were both students at Dalhousie. Their marriage ended in divorce with no children. He died at Camp Hill Military Hospital in 1946.

Vincent Christopher MacDonald was born in 1897 in Mulgrave, Nova Scotia, to Archibald and Clara MacDonald. He was educated at Dalhousie University where he received a BA (1930) and LLB (1920). In 1927 MacDonald married his first wife, Emily O’Connor, with whom he had three children, David, Peter, and Paul. After Emily’s death in 1937, MacDonald married Hilda Durney in 1938 and had two more children, Brian Henry and Alan Hugh.

MacDonald worked as a lawyer, educator, and civil servant. Called to the bars of Nova Scotia and Ontario in 1920 and 1927 respectively, he practiced law in both provinces; worked as a law clerk in the Nova Scotia Legislature; was a research assistant to the Royal Commission on Maritime Claims; served as secretary to Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King in 1927; and lectured in law at Dalhousie from 1920-1926 and Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto from 1929-1930. In 1930 he returned to Dalhousie to teach law and in 1934 became Dean of the Law School. He also served as Assistant Deputy Minister of Labour of Canada from 1942-1944. He remained at Dalhousie until 1950 when he was appointed a Justice of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia. MacDonald worked with numerous boards and commissions throughout his career, and served as an advisor to the Newfoundland government on union with Canada in 1948. He published numerous papers, frequently on topics related to constitutional and labour law, and edited a variety of publications, including the Dominion Law Reports and Canadian Criminal Cases (1924-1934). He also served on the Board of Governors of Dalhousie University and received honorary degrees from St. Francis Xavier, British Columbia, Dalhousie, and Columbia. MacDonald died in 1964.

George Vibert Douglas was a Canadian geologist and educator. Born in Montreal on July 2, 1892, he was educated in British private schools, graduated from McGill with a BSc (1920) and MSc (1921) and pursued doctoral studies at Harvard University. He was married to Olga Margaret Chrichton, with whom he had four children.

Douglas was a captain with the British Army in World War One, serving with the 17th Northumberland Fusiliers from 1915-1919 in Flanders and France. He received the Military Cross for his efforts. From 192-1922 he worked as a geologist on a Shackleton-Rowett Antarctic expedition and subsequently spent a year at Cambridge. In 1923 he began a PhD at Harvard, where he also lectured in geology. He ended his studies prematurely in 1926 to become chief geologist at the Spanish company Rio Tinto. From 1930-1931 he was a member of the exploration of the Rhodesia-Congo Border Concession.

Douglas came to Dalhousie in the early 1930s and was appointed the first Carnegie Professor of Geology, also serving as Head of Geology from 1932-1957. He was an active member of the university community, helping to establish both the Dalhousie Art Gallery and a student employment centre to assist students seeking work in mining and related fields. He led Dalhousie expeditions to Labrador in 1946 and 1947 and served as Nova Scotia's Provincial Geologist. Douglas retired from Dalhousie in 1957 and died October 8, 1958. The Douglas Prize in Geology was established in his honour.

Eric Mills is an invertebrate zoologist, biological oceanographer, and historian of science. Born in 1936 in Toronto, Ontario, he received his BSc from Carleton University in 1959 and his MSc and PhD from Yale University in 1962 and 1964. His teaching and research included work at Carleton University; Queen’s University; the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts; and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California. From 1967-2002 he taught at both Dalhousie University and the University of King’s College, serving as chairman of Dalhousie's Department of Oceanography from 1990-1992 and as the inaugural director of King's History of Science & Technology Program from 2001-2002. He retired from full-time employment as Professor Emeritus of the History of Science in the Department of Oceanography, Dalhousie University, and Inglis Professor, University of King’s College.

Mills' earliest work was in marine ecology, leading to his involvement with the Hudson 70 Expedition, the first Canadian biological oceanographic research in the Antarctic. His later studies in the history of science included nineteenth-century natural history, the development of biological and physical oceanography, and the history of Canadian science. He has maintained vigorous personal and professional interest in birds and birding throughout his life.

Andrew Doane Merkel was a journalist and poet. Born in New York State in 1884, he came to Nova Scotia when his father, Rev. A. Deb Merkel, took over a parish in Digby. He was educated at King's College, Windsor, and spent most of his adult life in Halifax.

Merkel began his career writing for the Philadelphia North American and the Sydney Record. He was news editor of the Saint John Standard from 1908 until 1910, when he came to Halifax as editor of the Halifax Echo. In 1917 he was hired as the Maritime News Editor for the Canadian Press in Montreal. He returned to Halifax in 1919 when he was appointed Superintendent of the Canadian Press's Atlantic Division. By his retirement in 1946 Merkel had covered a range of regional, national and international stories that included Marconi’s transmission from Cape Breton; the sinking of the Titanic; the first airplane flight in the British Empire; and two world wars. He retired to Port Royal where he purchased a large property adjacent to the Port Royal Habitation, hoping to establish a radio station and tourist attraction in the area. After the death of his wife in the early 1950s, Merkel returned to Halifax, where he died in 1954.

His first book-length poem, The Order of Good Cheer, completed in the early 1920s, was not published until 1944. His second, Tallahasse, was published the following year. Both works illustrate his abiding interest in Nova Scotian history. He also published two works of non-fiction: Letters from the Front (1914) and Bluenose Schooner (1948). In the 1920s Merkel was a member of the Halifax literary group The Song Fishermen; he and his wife, Florence (Tully) E. Sutherland, regularly hosted writers and artists at their South End home, including Bliss Carman, Charles G.D. Roberts, Charles Bruce, Kenneth Leslie and Robert Norwood.

William Bliss Carman was a poet and editor born on April 15, 1861 in Fredericton, New Brunswick. A descendant of United Empire Loyalists, Carman attended the Fredericton Collegiate School and the University of New Brunswick. He developed a love of classical literature while attending Fredericton Collegiate, where he was introduced to the poetry of Rossetti and Swinburne by headmaster George Robert Parkin. His own first published poem appeared in the University of New Brunswick Monthly in 1879.

Carman served as editor of the New York Independent, Current Literature, Cosmopolitan, The Chap-Book and The Atlantic Monthly. His first book of poetry, Low Tide on Grand Pre, was published in 1893, followed by Songs of Vagabondia in 1894. In total he published over 25 collections of poetry.

During the 1920s Carman was a member of The Song Fishermen, a Halifax-based literary and social set that included Charles G.D. Roberts (Carman’s cousin), Andrew Merkel, Robert Norwood, Evelyn Tufts, Stewart MacAuley, Kenneth Leslie, and Ethel Butler. He was named Canada’s Poet Laureate on October 28, 1921. He died in 1929 in New Canaan, Connecticut, where he had moved to be near Mary Perry King, one of his greatest literary influences.

Journalist and poet Kenneth Leslie was born in 1892 to businessman Robert Jamieson and Bertha (Starratt) Leslie in Pictou, Nova Scotia. He was raised and educated in Halifax, where he attended the Arnold School (a one-room private school), and Alexandra School. At age fourteen he entered Dalhousie University and received his BA in 1912. This was followed by one year of study at the Colgate Theological Seminary, an MA at the University of Nebraska (1914), and further graduate studies in philosophy and mysticism at Harvard University. Throughout this time, Leslie developed an appreciation of poetry, socialism and mysticism that would dominate his later life.

On his return to Halifax, Leslie married Elizabeth Moir, daughter of Halifax businessman James Moir. They had four children: Kathleen, Gloria, Rosaleen and Kenneth Alexander (later Alexander Moir). With James Moir’s support, Leslie experimented with a number of unsuccessful business ventures including farming and investment. During this time he also joined an informal Halifax literary group called the Song Fishermen.

Leslie moved to New York City where he experimented with preaching, broadcasting, composing music and acting. He continued to write poetry and was published in The Song Fishermens’ Song Sheet as well as Literary Digest and Scribner’s Magazine. In 1934 he published his first book of poetry, Windward Rock, which coincided with the end of his marriage. Between 1936–1938 Leslie published three more poetry books, including By Stubborn Stars and Other Poems, which won the 1938 Governor General’s Award. He also founded the religious and politically-minded magazine Protestant Digest (later called The Protestant) with his second wife, Marjorie Finlay Hewitt, and the assistance of three Nova Scotians—Ralph (Kelly) Morton, Sanford Archibald and Gerald Richardson. In 1943 Leslie established the Textbook Commission to eliminate anti-Semitic statements in American textbooks, and in 1944 he published an anti-fascist comic book called The Challenger. As publisher and editor of The Protestant, Leslie corresponded with many prominent American political and social figures and became a popular public speaker.

During the late 1940s Leslie's reputation as anti-Catholic and pro-communist began to grow; there were staff problems at The Protestant; and his marriage to Marjorie ended. In 1949 Leslie and his third wife, Cathy, returned to Halifax when Leslie and The Protestant drew criticism from Senator McCarthy for un-American activity. Leslie’s third marriage dissolved shortly after his return to Nova Scotia. He continued to publish The Protestant and successor periodicals from Nova Scotia on a smaller scale until 1972 when his health declined. He also worked sporadically as a taxi driver and teacher while continuing to write and publish poetry. In the early 1960s he married his fourth wife, Nora Steenerson. Kenneth Leslie died in Halifax in 1974.

Susan Leslie Campbell was a philosopher and teacher at Dalhousie University from 1992 until her death in 2011. She was born in Edmonton and completed her undergraduate and graduate studies in Alberta before receiving a PhD from the University of Toronto. Her work in philosophy of memory and psychology is internationally recognized and wide-ranging in its scope, encompassing disciplines including women's and gender studies, public policy, psychology, cultural studies and law.

“Being Dismissed: The Politics of Emotional Expression,” published in Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, 9.3 (1994), was chosen in 2010 as one of the 16 most influential and significant articles to be published in the journal's history. Campbell’s first book, Interpreting the Personal: Expression and the Formation of Feelings (1997), was shortlisted for the Canadian Philosophical Association Book Prize. Relational Remembering: Rethinking the Memory Wars (2003) was awarded the North American Society for Social Philosophy Book Prize and was named a Choice Notable Academic Title. She also co-edited two collections of original essays: Racism and Philosophy (1999) and Embodiment and Agency (2009).

Campbell was commissioned to prepare two discussion papers for the Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada Truth and Reconciliation Commission: “Challenges to Memory in Political Contexts: Recognizing Disrespectful Challenge” and “Remembering for the Future: Memory as a Lens on the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission," both of which were republished posthumously in Our Faithfulness to the Past: The Ethics and Politics of Memory (2014).

James Doull was a Canadian philosopher and academic who was born in 1918 to Irene and John Doull, a Pictou County politician, jurist and historian. His siblings were John Doull, a naval engineer, and Mary Doull, a musician and French scholar.

Educated at Dalhousie, the University of Toronto, Harvard University and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, James Doull returned to Dalhousie in the late 1940s to teach in the Classics Department. After retiring in 1983 he moved to Clarkes Beach, Newfoundland, where he lived with his wife, philosopher Floy Andrews, and taught at the University of Memorial until 1993.

His writing on Greek poetry, the culture of ancient Rome, ancient, medieval and modern philosophy, and twentieth-century politics appeared only in journals, primarily Dionysius, of which he was a founding editor, and Animus. In 2003 the University of Toronto Press published a posthumous volume containing a number of his works along with commentary by former colleagues and students.

In 1989, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of King's College, Halifax. He died in 2003.

Judth Fingard is an historian with research interests in Canadian social history, including religion, class, gender, race and disability. She was educated at Dalhousie University and the University of London, where she earned a PhD in 1970. From 1967-1997 she taught history at Dalhousie University, also serving as coordinator of Women's Studies (1989) and Dean of Graduate Studies (1990-1995).

From the late 1990s Fingard served terms as president of the Canadian Historical Association and the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Association. For her contributions to Canadian history she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1991. She received a number of other awards and honours, including the John Lyman Book Award (1982), the Hilda Neatby Prize (1990) and the Evelyn Richardson Memorial Award (1990).

In addition to a wide range of scholarly articles, biographical entries and book reviews, Fingard wrote The Anglican Design in Loyalist Nova Scotia (1972); Jack in Port: Sailortowns of Eastern Canada (1982); The Dark Side of Life in Victorian Halifax (1989); Halifax (Canada): The First 250 Years (1999), with Janet Guilford and David Sutherland; Mothers of the Municipality: Women, Work, and Social Policy in Post-1945 Halifax (2005), with Janet Guildford; and Protect, Befriend, Respect: Nova Scotia’s Mental Health Movement, 1908–2008 (2008), with John Rutherford.

Lothar Richter founded the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) at Dalhousie University in 1936. Born in 1894 in Silesia, Germany, Richter studied classics, philosophy and Lutheran ideology and earned doctoral degrees in both political science and law. In 1920 he became a civil servant in the Reich Department of Labour in Berlin, helping to draft the new Poor Law and other legislation around workers' compensation, health and employment. In 1933 he moved to England with his wife and young son, having obtained a temporary position at Leeds University through the help of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

In 1934 Carleton Stanley hired Richter as a professor of German, with a grant from the Carnegie Corporation funding his salary. After founding the IPA, which was supported by the Rockefeller Foundation in recognition of the need for greater regional economic and social development, Richter handed over his German courses to his wife, Johanna. The work of the institute contributed to the local community through the development of the Nova Scotia Bureau, Maritime Bureau of Industrial Relations, and the Maritime Labour Institute. Richter also established Public Affairs, Dalhousie’s second quarterly publication. He died in 1948 after a traffic accident.

Janet Stephanie (Jenny) Munday was born in Toronto in 1953 and grew up in New Brunswick and Quebec. She completed a secretarial course at the Capital Business College of Fredericton in 1974 and studied political science at the University of New Brunswick, graduating in 1978. Munday has worked as an actor in theatre companies across Canada, appearing at Theatre New Brunswick, Neptune Theatre, The National Arts Centre, Ship’s Company Theatre, Rising Tide Theatre and the Banff Playwrights Colony. She has also acted in film, television and radio. Munday is also a director and dramaturge and has written several works for the stage, including Relatively Harmless, The Last Tasmanian and Battle Fatigue. Other work includes radio drama, magazine articles and reviews.

Munday was co-founder and co-artistic director of the Comedy Asylum in the early 1980s. From 1989-1992 she was artistic director of the Mulgrave Road Co-op Theatre. From 1993-1995 she served as artistic associate and writer-in-residence at Theatre New Brunswick, and was the first artist-in-residence at Live Bait Theatre. Munday was the fourth Crake Fellow in Drama at Mount Allison University from 2004-2008 and is currently artistic director of Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre (PARC).

Among the many awards and recognitions that Munday has received are a Theatre Nova Scotia Merritt Special Achievement Award; the inaugural Mallory Gilbert Award from the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (PACT) and Tarragon Theatre; and an honorary membership to the Canadian Association for Theatre Research.

Christopher Heide is a poet and playwright. Born in 1951 in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, where his father was stationed, he spent his childhood moving between Armed Forces bases in England and across Canada. After completing secondary school in Ottawa, he moved to East Dover, Nova Scotia, where he began to write and publish poetry and short fiction. After moving to Halifax with his wife, Deborah Hickman, he started to write for theatre and radio. In 1976 he received a grant to attend Banff Playwrights Colony and in 1977 he was a playwright-in-residence at Tarragon Theatre in Toronto, where he wrote his first full-length play, On the Lee Side.

In 1979 he joined Mulgrave Road Co-op Theatre Company in Guysborough, Nova Scotia, co-creating The Coady Co-op Show and later writing Bring Back Don Messer. He served Mulgrave as artistic director between 1987-1989. He was also a playwright-in-residence at Mermaid Theatre in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, before being appointed director of Mermaid Youtheatre. In 2005 he became artistic director of Chester Playhouse.

Writing for radio, television and the theatre, Heide has had dozens of plays professionally produced in almost every Canadian province and abroad. He also has three books of poetry in print and has been the recipient of several awards for his writing. His work has included community development projects, in particular working with children and youth. He is also active in various professional associations and was a co-founder of the Dramatists Co-op of Nova Scotia.

Alexander H. Leighton was a sociologist and psychologist and the lead researcher of the seminal Stirling County Study in psychiatric epidemiology, the longest running study of its kind to understand the prevalence and types of mental illness across generations in a cross-cultural community. Born on 17 July 1908 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he received a BA from Princeton University (1932), an MSc from Cambridge University (1934), and an MD from Johns Hopkins Medical School (1936). He held professorial appointments in both the departments of psychiatry and community health and epidemiology at Dalhousie University, as well as in sociology and anthropology at Cornell, and he was professor emeritus at Harvard. He also served on multiple advisory committees for the governments of Canada and the United States and for the World Health Organization, and over his lifetime received a multitude of awards and honours. He died in 2007.

In 1948 Leighton initiated the first of the post-war studies of the distribution and prevalence of mental illness in a general population. The Stirling County Study is still active and from Leighton's retirement from Harvard University in 1975, it was directed by his wife and research partner, Dr. Jane Murphy Leighton. One of its initial findings in Nova Scotia, was that one in five adults experiences mental illness, most commonly depression, anxiety and/or alcohol abuse. Similar studies were carried out in other settings, including New York City, Alaska, Nigeria and Vietnam. Other investigations of this type now number in the hundreds and have been conducted across the world.

Robert Henry Graham was a barrister and politician born in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, on 30 November 1871, the son of Jane (Marshall) and John George Graham. He graduated from Dalhousie University with his BA in 1892 and LLB in 1894, and was called to the Nova Scotia Bar that same year. In 1913 he became King's counsel (crown attorney) and in 1925 was appointed to the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia. He was also a stipendiary magistrate from 1906-1920.

Graham served New Glasgow as town councillor in 1898 and as mayor from 1899-1900 before entering provincial politics and representing Pictou County as a Liberal in the House of Assembly from 1916-1925. Following his career in politics, he was appointed to the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia. He died in 1956 at the age of 85.

John Rutherford was born in Shincliffe, England. He emigrated to Albion Mines in Pictou County and served as Inspector of Mines for Nova Scotia from 1865-1872, when he was appointed General Manager and Mining Engineer for the General Mining Association, later the Halifax Company. He had extensive dealings with Albion Mines, Blight Area, Caledonia Coal Mines, and the Style Mining Area. Beginning in the late 1890s, Rutherford sold Styles Mining Company options; his goal was to sell the entirety of the property to a worthy buyer.

Robert Rutherford was John’s only surviving son (George Rutherford died in 1903), and was left in charge of his father's estate in 1913. He continued his father's efforts to sell off the Cumberland Coal Areas until at least 1932.

Sandy (Victor Alexander) Moore completed his formative training in music at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. After receiving his BA in 1968, he travelled throughout Europe and Canada, teaching, writing, performing and exploring folklore and classical traditions in theatre, dance and film, and writing and producing his own music-related events.

In 1984 he studied orchestration with Robert Turner at the University of Manitoba: during this self-styled 'Winter Period' he created stylistically mature works for concert programming. His work and conceptual thinking about music were further influenced by master classes with Professor Dimiter Christoff from Bulgaria and Professor Ton deLowe from Amsterdam/Paris, as well as by his studies in Prague with Czech composer, Sylvie Bodorova.

Moore's interest in the traditional and contemporary music of other cultures has led him to work with musicians and composers from Zimbabwe, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ireland and Japan. His 1991 Winds of Lyra tour of Japan, with compositions scored for Irish harp and Japanese traditional instruments, marked the first of his international concerts.

Moore's collaborations with award-winning poets, choreographers and performers have enhanced his reputation as a versatile and inventive composer, and inform his repertoire of compositions for solo instrument and voice, small chamber ensembles and orchestra. He was a founding member of UPSTREAM music ensemble (1989), which provided opportunities for innovative and experimental composition in a practical concert setting, where Moore performed on the Irish harp, piano, accordion and synthesizers. He is an active member of Canadian Music Centre, Canadian League of Composers and Atlantic Federation of Musicians.

From 2001-2003 Moore taught part time in the Department of Music at Dalhousie University, where he created a course on scoring for film and other dramatic media. He is also a frequent guest instructor of voice and music at the University of Toronto at Scarborough, and has twice been appointed composer-in-residence at Mount Allison's music department. Most recently Moore taught a creative scoring class for television and film at Halifax's Centre For Art Tapes.

Moore's television and fim work includes the well-received score for CBC's Trudeau miniseries. In 2006 he won the Atlantic Film Festival's prize for Best Original Score for Dinner for One, a short film by Anita McGee, and in 2004 his score for Thom Fitzgerald’s feature film, The Wild Dogs, was nominated for a Genie Award.

Ronald St. John Macdonald was an internationally recognized legal scholar and jurist. He was born 20 August 1928 in Montreal, the son of Col. Ronald St. John Macdonald and Elizabeth Marie (Smith) Macdonald. After finishing his secondary education, he served with the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve until his discharge in 1946 as a sub-lieutenant. He earned a BA from St. Francis Xavier University in 1949 and an LLB in 1952 from Dalhousie University. He furthered his legal education at the University of London (LLM, 1954) and Harvard Law School (LLM, 1955). From 1955-1957 he lectured in law at Osgoode Hall (York University), then moved to the University of Western Ontario from 1959-1961. He was appointed to the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto in 1961, and served there as Dean of the Law from 1967-1972. From 1972-1979 he was Dean of Law at Dalhousie University Law School, where he taught international law from 1979-1990.

He served as a consultant with the Republic of Cyprus from 1974-1978, and was a Canadian representative to the United Nations General Assembly in 1965, 1966, 1968, 1977 and 1990. From 1980-1998 he was the only non-European judge to sit on the European Court of Human Rights, Strasbourg, and in 1984 he was made a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, The Hague. He was appointed an Honorary Professor of Law at Peking University from 1986-1998. Other roles included President of the World Academy of Arts and Science (1983-1986). In 1984 he was made an officer of the Order of Canada and in 2000 a Companion of the Order of Canada. Ronald St. John Macdonald died 7 September 2006 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and is buried in the family plot in the St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church parish cemetery in Lismore, Pictou County.

Edith Zillig was born and raised on a farm in the province of Pomerania, Germany. She studied at the Agricultural College of Potsdam before gaining employment as a farm manager. In 1954 she immigrated to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and one year later married Gernot Zillig, who had also recently emigrated from Germany. In 1958 the Zilligs bought 150 acres overlooking the Kennetcook River in Scotch Village, Nova Scotia. Although they were interested initially in mixed farming, after concluding that the land was better suited to livestock, they began to build up a variety of cattle, swine, domestic waterfowl and sheep, including six mature crossbred Suffolk ewes from the Annapolis Valley.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Edith and Gernot belonged to the provincial sheep farmers' association, which later became the Sheep Producers Association of Nova Scotia (SPANS). Between 1973-1983 she was an active promoter of the Nova Scotia sheep industry through SPANS sheep fairs and served as the association's director during the mid-1980s. In 1981 she was appointed Western Director of the Nova Scotia Wool Marketing Board, a position she held until 1993. In addition, she maintained an interest in the Purebred Sheep Breeders Association of Nova Scotia.

Edith continued to farm and raised sheep after the death of her husband in 1993, working with her son, Manfred, and her daughter, Margaret, until her own death in 2009.

Margaret Stevenson DeWolfe was a biochemist and Professor of Paediatrics in the Department of Paediatrics, Faculty of Medicine at Dalhousie University. She was born in St. Stephen New Brunswick and received her college education at Acadia University. DeWolfe worked in hospital dietetics and then pursued a research career. She obtained an MA (biochemistry) and PhD in pathologic chemistry from the University of Toronto.

DeWolfe arrived in Halifax in 1964 after serving as a research associate at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. DeWolfe spent 17 years associated with the Atlantic Research Centre for Mental Retardation (ARCMR). She served as Secretary on the Board of Directors for 11 years. DeWolfe retired on June 30, 1981 after a 40-year career in nutrition and biochemistry.

Author and educator James De Mille was born 23 August 1833 in Saint John, New Brunswick, the third child born to Loyalists Nathan Smith DeMill and Elizabeth Budd. (The family name was DeMill, but James wrote under De Mille, and used this name after 1865.)

De Mille was educated at the Saint John Grammar School, Horton Academy and Acadia College. During 1850-1851 De Mille toured Europe and Britain with his brother, Elisha. He received an MA from Brown University, Rhode Island, in 1854. In 1858 he married Elizabeth Ann Pryor, daughter of Dr. John Pryor, first president of Acadia College. Together they had three sons and one daughter.

De Mille worked briefly in Cincinnati before returning to Saint John. From 1856-1860 he and a partner ran a bookstore there, a venture that left De Mille in debt; shortly thereafter he began teaching classics at Acadia College. In 1865 he moved to Halifax, where he taught history and rhetoric at Dalhousie University and became well known for his love of Latin and the outdoors. He remained at Dalhousie until he died of pneumonia in 1880.

De Mille was a prolific and popular writer in the later nineteenth century. He began writing for magazines and journals while studying at Brown. Many of his books were published serially in American magazines such as Harper’s, before being published as monographs. His humorous historical romances, adventures and mysteries often reflected his early travels abroad, as did his first book, Martyrs of the catacombs, published in 1864. He also wrote a series of adventure stories for boys set in the Annapolis Valley, which drew heavily on his experiences at Horton Academy, a textbook entitled The elements of rhetoric, and the spiritually-themed poem Behind the veil, which was published posthumously.

Lawrence Johnstone Burpee (1873–1946) was an historian, civil servant, librarian and writer. He was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Lewis Johnstone Burpee and Alice de Mill, sister of James De Mille. In 1899 he married Maud Hanington, with whom he had five children, Lawrence, Edward, Lewis, Ruth and Margaret.

Burpee was educated at home and at public and private schools. In 1890 he entered the Canadian civil service and served as private secretary to three successive ministers of justice. From 1905-1912 he was librarian of the Carnegie public library in Ottawa. From 1912 until his death, he was Canadian Secretary of the International Joint Commission.

Burpee published extensively in the areas of Canadian bibliography, geography and history. He died in Oxford, England, in 1946.