Dr. Richard Bennett, the University of Manitoba Archivist between 1978 and 1998, proposed the Symposium to discuss some of the collections housed in the Archives. The proceedings were held in University Centre on November 23, 1979.

Education: Anthonisen, Margaret George

Positions: Asst Clin Prof Psychiatry (Dartmouth)1961-65; Prof Emeritus, (Dartmouth)1966- ; see also #3 below

Education: MD(Harvard)1958; PhD(McGill)1969; FRCPC

Positions: Professor of Internal Medicine, UM; Distinguished Professor UM 1986; Dean of Medicine, UM 1988-1999; Dean Emeritus 2000; Distinguished Prof Emeritus 2005;

Education: MD (Man) 1966

Positions: Professor Med Micro, Int Med , Pharm ; Ass’t Dean (Admissions)

Skapti Arason, born in Iceland in 1850, immigrated to Quebec in 1874 with 360 other Icelanders on a ship operated by the Allen Ship Lines. He proceeded to Toronto with the majority of the other Icelanders. In 1875, the Canadian government sent Arason to scout out settlement prospects in the new province of Manitoba. It is believed that Arason was one of the first Icelanders to visit Manitoba. Upon arrival in Winnipeg, Arason and three other Icelanders traveled up the Red River to the western shore of Lake Winnipeg before choosing to begin a settlement near present day Gimli. In 1881, due to repeated crop failure, Arason left the settlement in the Interlake and resettled on a homestead near what would become the town of Glenboro. Arason farmed in the Glenboro area until his death in 1903.

John Douglas Sutherland Campbell Argyll was born in 1845, the son of John Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll, and Lady Elizabeth Leveson-Gower. He was married in 1871 to HRH Princess Louise of Great Britain, daughter of HM Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. He was 9th Duke of Argyll and also Marquis of Lorne. He served as Governor-General of Canada from 1878 to 1883. He died in 1914.

Education: MD(Man)1936

Positions: Unknown

Education: MD, CM(Man)1893

Position: Provincial Cabinet member (JW)

Education: MD(Tor)1943; Dip Int Med(McGill)1950; FRCP(C)1950

Positions: Asst Prof Physiology & Medical Research 1950

Education: MD 1966

Positions: Pres MMA, CMA 1996-97

David Arnason was born in Gimli, Manitoba, on 23 May 1940, to Baldwin and Gudrun Arnason. He received a Bachelor's degree (1961), a Certificate in Education (1963), and a Master's degree (1969) from the University of Manitoba, and a Ph.D. from the University of New Brunswick (1983-1984). He began lecturing at the University of Manitoba in 1973. He is currently the chair of both the Icelandic and the English departments with a full professorship. His many accomplishments include acting as founder and editor of The Journal of Canadian Fiction, general editor of the MacMillan Themes in Canadian Literature series, editor of Turnstone Press, and member of the advisory board of Anansi Press. Arnason also began working for the CBC in the early 1970s as a book and theatre reviewer. His work included radio adaptations of books, such as including Frederick Philip Grove's Settlers of the Marsh. Arnason has been and continues to be a prolific writer of short stories, poetry, and novels. His most recent book is Baldur's Song: A Saga (published in 2010 by Turnstone Press). Arnason is married to Carol Dahlstrom and has three children. Arnason is the author of several publications including poetry books Marsh Burning and Skragg and the non-fiction works The Icelanders and The New Icelanders. His works of fiction include: 50 Stories and a Piece of Advice, The Circus Performer's Bar, The Happiest Man in the World, The Pagan Wall, The Dragon and the Drygoods Princess, If Pigs Could Fly, King Jerry, and The Demon Lover. Arnason's plays include Section 23/L'article 23, Welcome to Hard Times, The Hard Life Cabaret and Dewline. He is a frequent contributor to CBC Radio working on adaptations of Tom Jones, The Tin Drum and Settlers of the Marsh. Arnason was the editor of Dorothy Livesay's Right Hand, Left Hand.

Leslie Arnett was born on July 30, 1889 in Brandon, Manitoba. He lived and worked most of his life in the United States. There, he innovated improvements to vending machines and worked as an executive. He passed away on January 1, 1972.

Amy Arnold is a resident of Neepawa, Manitoba. Her husband was Sidney Arnold.

The Faculty of Arts was formed when the Faculty of Arts and Science dissolved in 1970. In 1970, the Faculty of Arts signed an agreement with St. Paul's and St. John's Colleges, to unify their respective faculty members. The Arts Faculty Council is made up of the faculty members from Arts, St. Paul's, and St. John's Colleges, as well as undergraduate and graduate student representatives.

The Association of Universities and Colleges in Canada (AUCC) is a national non-governmental, not-for-profit organization that is funded through membership fees and revenues from publications and contract management services. The AUCC represents 93 Canadian public and private not-for-profit universities and university colleges. The AUCC provides a forum for discussion and a framework for action at the federal level, and facilitates the development of public policy on higher education. It was founded in 1911 and its membership ranges from small, undergraduate liberals arts institutions to large, multi-campus universities offering a broad selection of undergraduate, graduate and professional programs. The activities of AUCC are coordinated by its secretariat, located in Ottawa.

The Atlas Wrecking Company was established in the early 1900's by David Billinkoff. Coming to Winnipeg from Russia on Christmas Eve, Billinkoff used his only dollar to buy a handsaw, going door to door offering to cut wood. He also began hauling loads of frozen gravel from Birds Hill to the City of Winnipeg, and eventually developed a scrap lumber resale business. After David's passing in 1933, his son Alecander quit school to run Billinkoff Wrecking and Lumber, and was eventually joined by his brothers Ben and Joe. In the 1950's the business became two distinct companies, Billinkoff's Lumber and the Atlas Wrecking Company. Over the years, Atlas completed many major wrecking, salvaging, or demolishing projects occurring in Western Canada. This includes the demolition of various public structures in Winnipeg such as the old Canadian National Telegraph's building at the corner of Portage Avenue and Main Street, the old Winnipeg Electric Company's steam generating plant, and the old Canadian Distillery in St. Boniface to name a few. Before and during each demolition, pictures were taken to document the event, making a unique contribution to the city's evolving landscape.

Isabel Auld became the University of Manitoba'€s first female Chancellor in 1977, the University's centennial year. She was born in Winnipeg to C.G. and Mrs. Hutcheson, immigrants from Scotland. She attended school in Regina, Saskatchewan. She obtained a Bachelor of Science in biology and a Masters of Science (1940) in genetics from the University of Saskatchewan. A gifted student, she won a National Research Council studentship for post-graduate research in cyto-genitics at McGill University before accepting a post at the Rust Research Laboratory of the Federal Department of Agriculture. She resigned this post upon marriage to W.M. Auld in 1942. Whilst raising three children, she began a lifelong career of volunteer work dedicated to the welfare of others, serving numerous organizations involved in education, health, consumer and social services. Member of the Board of Governors and Senate for fourteen years and Chancellor for nine, she became the "€ambassador-at-large" for the University of Manitoba, gaining the respect of academics, administrators and students alike. Her many honours include the Centennial Medal (1967), honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Saskatchewan (1979) and Manitoba (1986), Member of the Order of Canada (1989) and inclusion in Winnipeg's Citizens'€ Hall of Fame (1993).

Education: BA(Man)1914; MA(Man)1922; MD(Man)1921

Positions: Demonstrator in Physiology 1917-18; Demonstrator to Asst Prof, Physiology 1921-26; Demonstrator in Ophthalmology 1939

Margaret Avison was born in Galt, Ontario in 1918. She moved to Regina with her family in 1920, and then to Calgary a few years later. The Avisons moved to Toronto in 1930, where Avison attended high school. She entered Victoria College at the University of Toronto in 1936. When she completed her B.A. in English in 1940, she was already a published poet; her poem "Gatineau" had appeared in the Canadian Poetry Magazine the previous year. Avison had a wide and varied professional career including working as a file clerk, proofreader, editor, and in the Registrar's Office and Library at the University of Toronto.

In 1951, Avison's History of Ontario, a high school textbook, was published. She was awarded a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Grant in 1956, enabling her to spend eight months in the United States writing poetry and attending creative writing classes at the universities of Chicago and Indiana. She then undertook freelance work editing, indexing, and ghostwriting a book entitled A Doctor's Memoir. Her first book of poetry, Winter Sun, was published in 1960 and won the Governor General's Award.

Deeply moved by the Hungarian Uprising of 1956, Avison translated eight Hungarian poems, which appeared in The Plough and Pen: Writings from Hungary 1930-1956, and brought recognition to many of the great twentieth-century Hungarian poets. The following year The Research Compendium was published. In 1963, Avison returned to the University of Toronto for graduate work. She completed her M.A. thesis and began doctoral studies in 1964, but never earned her doctorate because she did not write a thesis.

The Dumbfounding, her second book of poetry was published in 1966. It was the product of her profound religious convictions, as were all of her subsequent collections. From 1966 to 1968 she taught at Scarborough College, University of Toronto. During this time, she volunteered as a women's worker for a Presbyterian mission called Evangel Hall, then served on the staff there until 1972. Avison spent eight months as writer-in-residence at the University of Western Ontario during 1972 to 1973, after which she took a position in the CBC Radio Archives. In 1978, she returned to charitable work, working as a secretary for the Mustard Seed Mission. Her third book of poetry, sunblue, was published in 1978.

In 1986, Avison retired from the Mustard Seed Mission. She received her second Governor-General's Award in 1990 for No Time, which had been published the previous year. An anthology of her work titled Margaret Avison: Selected Poems was published in 1991. In 1994, A Kind of Perseverance was published, consisting of two lectures describing the tensions she experienced when trying to live out her Christian values in secular society, specifically within a university setting. A further book of poetry, Not Yet but Still, was published in 1997. Her book of poetry, Concrete and Wild Carrot, was published in 2002 by Brick Books and won the prestigious Griffin Poetry Prize in 2003. Between 2003 and 2005, The Porcupine's Quill published Always Now: The Collected Poems, Volumes One to Three. From 2006-2009, her last three books were published, two of them posthumously: Momentary Dark (2006), Listening (2009), and I Am Here and Not Not-There, an autobiography (2009). In addition to her two Governor-General's awards, Avison's contribution to Canadian literature has been recognized through the bestowal of honorary degrees from Acadia University (1983), York University (1985), and Victoria University (1988). Avison was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1985. She died in 2007.

(Samuel Cuthbert) Peter Hugh Aykroyd was born in 1922 in Ontario, Canada. He was a policy advisor to the Pierre Trudeau government and has currently retired with his wife Lorraine to the house that his grandfather lived in on Lake Loughborough. He participated in some of the séances of his grandfather as a small child (1929 onwards) and has had a lifelong interest in Spiritualism and the supernatural. In the 1990s, he and his sister Judy discovered many of his grandfather’s journals and other papers. Peter eventually wrote and published the book A History of Ghosts (2009) that is largely based on those papers and his own experiences. He is the father of actors Peter J. and Dan Aykroyd, both of whom are still connected with the paranormal – Peter created the TV series PSI Factor (1996-2000), while Dan, who also hosted the show, co-wrote and acted in Ghostbusters (1984), which was partly derived from childhood memories and stories.

Dr. Samuel Augustus Aykroyd was born in 1855 near Kingston, Ontario. In 1884 he married Ellen Jane Wemp, and had two children, Lillian and Maurice. Initially a schoolteacher, he became a dentist in 1892 and remained so until his death in 1933. He came to Spiritualism in the early 1900s, and around 1908 made his first visit to Lily Dale, New York, where one of the largest fixed Spiritualist camps existed. From 1920 onwards, Dr. Aykroyd and his wife hosted numerous séances at their cottage near Lake Loughborough (and occasionally in Kingston and Toronto), often using a medium named Walter Ashurst (1890-?). These séances were also variously attended by his son and daughter-in-law (Marjorie), and later their children (Peter and Maurice Jr.). The séances often resulted in a variety of psychic phenomena such as table tipping and voices, including many regular spirit communicators such as Irishman “Mike Whelan”, Ming dynasty-era “Lee Long”, Egyptian prince “Blue Light”, and Native American “Broken Arrow”. Although they attempted to achieve materialization of spirits, the Aykroyd group was never successful in that regard.

Viola Victoria Bailey was educated at St. Boniface Normal School and received her Manitoba Public Schools, Professional Second Class Teacher's Certificate on October 6th, 1922. In May 1925, she signed a contract with the School District of Winnipeg Number One. In September 1925, she began teaching grade three at David Livingstone School in Winnipeg.

Joseph Cecil (Joe) Bain was born in Toronto in 1916. He lost his mother a few weeks later and was raised by his aunt, Mrs. Margaret (Horton) Robinson. He met Lillian Murphy in late 1934 or early 1935 and they were married in late 1935 in Toronto. Throughout Lillian’s time as a Spiritualist, Joe was supportive of her interests and career, building the Bethel Sanctuary in their unused basement in 1974. In 1980, Joe was certified as a healer with the National Federation of Spiritual Healers (Canada), Inc., and ordained by W.C. Partridge in Richmond. Joe, an Anglican, agreed to be ordained so as to have the authority necessary to manage the business and legal aspects of Springdale Park Spiritual Association, and to conduct funeral services when necessary. Later, he produced for his children a compendium from Arthur Findlay’s autobiography Looking Back (1955), to highlight the parts he felt were most significant to Lillian’s belief in Spiritualism. In 1980, he became the fifth and final President of Springdale Park Spiritual Association. He retired from his career in business for the last time in 1987, when he and Lillian moved up to Bracebridge permanently. After Lillian’s death in 2003, he donated a number of records and other material to SRIC. Joe passed away peacefully in 2009.

Lillian Catherine (Murphy) Bain was born in Toronto on 4 May 1916. She met Joe Bain in 1934 or 1935, and they were married in late 1935 in Toronto. They had eight daughters and two sons. In the mid-1960s, Lillian began to explore Spiritualism. She began her investigation at Toronto’s Springdale Church under the guidance of Reverend William Charles Partridge (1893-1984), where her main interest was in the healing aspects of Spiritualism. Lillian first visited Camp Chesterfield in Indiana in 1968, and visited annually until 1982, often accompanied by her husband. In 1971, she held a licentiate certificate from the Vancouver-based International Spiritualist Alliance, and gave her first lecture at Springdale Church. She was also certified as a healer by the National Federation of Spiritual Healers (Canada), Inc. In 1974, Lillian opened the Bethel Healing Sanctuary in her home at 91 Marilake Drive, Agincourt, on the instigation of British Spiritualists’ National Union minister Mrs. Hilda Martin.
Lillian worked at Springdale Church until 1978, when Reverend Partridge appointed her Pastor / Minister of the Springdale Park Spiritual Association church at Bracebridge, Ontario. She served there until the church’s closure in the mid-1980s, when she conducted the last service. For a number of years after Lillian became Pastor of Springdale Park Church, the Bains continued to live in Toronto. During those years, they spent their summers in a home on a lot in Springdale Park, on the North Muskoka River, next door to the Partridges’ summer cottage. In September 1980, Reverend Partridge ordained Lillian and Joe in Richmond. In the late 1980s, Lillian began suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, which was not diagnosed until 1991, when she was already seriously ill. She died in 2003.

Education: BSc(Sask); MD(Man)1939

Positions: Family physician, Port Arthur, Ontario

Ted Bancroft of Treherne, Manitoba assisted the Manitoba Department of Culture, Heritage and Citizenship in locating a connector trail to the Yellowquill Trail. The trail was originally used by North American natives and European settlers.

Pamela Banting was born in Birch River, Manitoba in 1955. She obtained a B.A. and Cert. Ed. from the University of Manitoba in 1976 and 1977 respectively. She then taught secondary school in Gimli, Manitoba for two years before obtaining a M.A. from the University of Manitoba in 1986. While at the University of Manitoba, she organized the Dorothy Livesay archives and co-wrote the finding aid, The Dorothy Livesay Papers. She received a Ph.D. from the University of Alberta in 1990. Pamela Banting taught English at the University of Western Ontario from 1990 to 1994. She then became an Adjunct Professor at the University of Alberta until 1999. She became a Sessional Lecturer at the University of Calgary in 1996, where she was teaching English literature and cultural studies. In 2007 she was Assistant Professor in the University of Calgary's Department of English. She has published two poetry chapbooks, an anthology of contemporary western-Canadian writing, a book of literary theory, and numerous journal and magazine articles.