Gabriel (Lucien) Bonneau (1904-1988) In February 1943, Commandant Gabriel Bonneau official took up his position as the representative in
Canada of Charles de Gaulle’s Free French (later Fighting French) resistance movement. He served in that position until January 1945 when he returned to France. Working in very delicate political circumstances, Bonneau proved himself to be an able diplomat. He was instrumental in uniting the Free French committees in Canada and in winning the support of both the Canadian government and the Canadian people for the Gaullist movement and, later, for the new French provisional government. After his return to France, Bonneau had a distinguished diplomatic career, serving first as Director for Middle- East affairs and then as French ambassador to Mexico, Sweden, Uruguay, and Switzerland. Commandant Bonneau did not have the typical background for a diplomat of the period. Born in 1904 into a modest provincial French family, Bonneau had—-as his son Michel has testified—-a difficult childhood. He took refuge in his studies and through his own efforts and determination became a schoolteacher in a suburb of Paris. Later he taught in Turkey and Persia. He became so fascinated with the Middle East that
he returned to Paris and graduated from the prestigious Ecole des Langues Orientales. He joined the French diplomatic service and was posted as a translator to Tabriz and later to Teheran. In 1934 he was appointed as attaché to the French Legation in Kabul, Afghanistan. Bonneau, his wife, and young family were still in Kabul when France fell to the German armies in June of 1940. When he heard from a British colleague on June 18, 1940 that there was a French general in London who wanted to continue the fight, Bonneau immediately sent a telegram to de Gaulle volunteering his services. However, he had to wait until a diplomat was appointed to replace him in Kabul before he could travel to the Middle East to join the Free French forces. He served as a lieutenant in the Free French unit fighting the Italians in Eritrea. He joined the diplomatic service of the Free French movement in May 1942. Meanwhile, in April 1941, his wife, Sylvie, brought their two sons to safety in Vancouver. Madame Bonneau, a former ballerina, built a successful career in Vancouver as a teacher of dance, specializing in training ballet students in the Cecchetti method. She and the children joined her husband in Ottawa in late April 1943. Together Commandant and Madame Bonneau not only convinced politicians and government officials in Ottawa of the importance of the Gaullist cause but they travelled across Canada, gaining the support of Canadians from Halifax to Vancouver. With her warmth and experience, Sylvie Bonneau contributed greatly to the success of the Gaullist cause in Canada. NOTE: The archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the archives of the Institut Charles de Gaulle in Paris are the primary source for the career of Gabriel Bonneau.
Gail Dianne Bowen was born in Toronto. After receiving her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Toronto in 1964 and her Masters of Arts from the University of Waterloo in 1975, she undertook graduate research at the University of Saskatchewan.
Bowen was a lecturer in English at the University of Saskatchewan and the Saskatchewan Indian Cultural College in Saskatoon. In 1979 she and her family moved to Regina where she once more served as a lecturer, this time at the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College (SIFC) and the University of Regina. In 1986 she was appointed assistant professor of English at SIFC (now the First Nations University of Canada), and was Chair of the English Department for six years.
The first six books in the Joanne Kilbourn series Deadly Appearances (1990); Murder at the Mendel (1991); The Wandering Soul Murders (1992); A Colder Kind of Death (1994), winner of the Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis Award; A Killing Spring (1996) and Verdict in Blood (1998) have appeared as made-for-television movies with world-wide distribution. Burying Ariel (2000); The Glass Coffin (2002); The Last Good Day (2004); The Endless Knot (2006) and The Brutal Heart (2008) have met with critical and commercial success. In June 2008, Reader’s Digest named Bowen ‘Canada’s Best Mystery Novelist’.
Between 2010 and 2017 several more book in the series were published and in 2018, Sleuth: Gail Bowen on Writing Mysteries was published by the University of Regina Press.
Bowen’s short story “The King of Charles Street West”, which appeared in Toronto Noir (2008) published by Akashic Books, New York, was singled out for special praise by Publishers’ Weekly.
Bowen has had four plays produced at Regina’s Globe Theatre – Dancing in Poppies (1993) which was presented in a special performance for Prince Edward, Beauty and the Beast (1993); The Tree (1994) and an adaptation of Peter Pan (1997). Manitoba Theatre for Young People chose Peter Pan as its 2000 Christmas production. The Grand Theatre in London, Ontario presented Dancing in Poppies in 2002 and Peter Pan in 2003.
Bowen’s adaptation of Doctor Doolittle was broadcast on CBC’s Showcase in April 2006, and the University of Regina produced a theatrical version of the play simultaneously. Saving Lonesome George, Bowen’s original play about the last of the Galapagos tortoises, was produced by Persephone Theatre in 2008 and will be produced by Carousel Players in 2009.
Bowen’s radio play The Word According to Charlie D was broadcast on CBC’s Showcase in October 2006. Her Long Time Listener/First Time Caller is CBC’s World Play for 2008 and was rebroadcast on CBC on May 18, 2009. She is now adapting the play for Orca’s new series, Raven Books.
Bowen was Writer in Residence for the Toronto Reference Library in May and June of 2009.
Bowen has written the introduction to “Essays on Canadian Detective Fiction” that will be published by Wilfred Laurier Press in 2009.
Claude Breeze, sometimes also known as cHerbert, was born in Nelson, British Columbia in 1938. He received early education and art training in Saskatoon studying under Ernest Lindner. He attended the School of Art at Regina College and graduated in 1958, receiving instruction from Roy Kiyooka, Ronald Bloore, Art McKay and Ken Lochhead. In 1959 he attended the Vancouver School of Art.
In 1967 Claude Breeze was employed as a Sessional Instructor at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby and then at the Banff Centre School of Fine Arts in Banff, Alberta. Moving to Ontario he worked as the Artist-in-Residence from 1972 to 1975 at the University of Western Ontario and then moved back to Alberta to be a Sessional Visiting Instructor at the University of Calgary in 1975. Moving back to Toronto in the following year he became an Associate Professor at York University. In 1988 he was a Sessional Visiting Professor at the Emily Carr School of Art in Vancouver.
Breeze held his first one-man show in 1965, “Lovers in a Landscape” at the New Design Gallery in Vancouver, British Columbia. Since then he has had many one-man exhibitions and has participated in group shows in Canada, the United States, England, France, Scotland and China. Breeze was an early pioneer in the use of digital technology in studio art making. His work is held in many private, corporate and public collections. His art deals mainly with social and political issues and is manipulated as a combination of expressionist figure to non-representational motifs.
Claude Breeze was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1974 and awarded the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Medal in 1978, he is a painter with a national reputation as well as Professor Emeritus at York University
The Bushwakker Brewing Company Ltd. was established in 1991 and is located on the main floor of the Strathdee Building in the warehouse district of Regina. The pub is considered one of Canada’s top five brewpubs. University professor, Bev Robertson, his wife Elaine and several other university professors own and manage the pub which serves as the venue for a wide variety of events which support both the cultural and charitable communities of Regina.
Sharon Butala was born in 1940 and has lived all but six years of her life in Saskatchewan (33 years in the southwest of Saskatchewan) she resides now in Calgary. Sharon has one son and two grandchildren.
She received her B.A. and B.Ed. from the University of Saskatchewan. Besides having been published in numerous periodicals and anthologies she has published sixteen books.
Amongst other honours Butala has won the Marian Engel Award for Women Writers in Mid-Career, 1986 Writers' Choice Award, Saskatchewan Book Awards and Western Magazine Awards. She has also won a Saskatchewan Writers Guild Member's Achievement Award, a Canadian Authors’ Award, Canada 125 Commemorative Medal, Queen's Jubilee Medal and the Centennial Medal. She initiated and chaired a committee to make the Wallace Stegner house available as a Writer/Artist’s residence. Butala has received two honorary doctorates and is an Officer in the Order of Canada.
Dan A. Cameron was born in Ottawa on August 7, 1880 but moved to Winnipeg as a boy. He was well-known in Saskatchewan and across Canada for his association with the music field, and in particular for his vocal work.
He began his music career as a voice teacher at Albert College in Belleville, Ontario. Before coming to Regina, Cameron studied with Herbert Witherspoon, Oscar Saenger (famed coach and interpretation expert), Dr. Ferey Lulek, Carl Odell and George Sweet, all in New York. He served in the First World War overseas with the Canadian Expeditionary Force, and returned to Ottawa to hold a position with the Federal government looking after veterans’ affairs. During his time in Ottawa he was soloist at one of the leading churches.
By 1923 Cameron had returned to the music field when he was appointed to the Regina Conservatory of Music to head the voice department. Shortly after his arrival in Regina, he began to write for the Leader-Post. He wrote a music and drama column, book reviews, concert news, music festival reports and interviews. After 1940 he began to write on a range of topics.
Besides his teaching at the Conservatory and his writing, Dan Cameron was involved in a great number of professional music associations in Regina. From the Regina Orchestral Society to the Knox-Metropolitan Church choir, Cameron sang and organized a great many singers in Regina.
Cameron’s papers cover the period 1913 to 1963, and reveal the full extent of his involvement in vocal activities in Regina and in Canada. As well, they contain many interesting details on military personnel through a roster book, revealing notes on singing techniques, and correspondence and programmes from various notable musical events, such as the Gracie Fields concert of 1940. All-in-all these papers give the reader a fascinating glimpse of one of Regina’s most noted vocal musicians.