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Halyna Kild was born on July 17th, 1955, in Ukraine (in the Yunashky village in the Prohrebyshche district of the Vinnytsia region). She is a journalist, editor, translator, and a freelance radio correspondent at Radio Canada International (1992-1998). She came to Canada in 1998. She is a specialist in the field of graphic communications, advertising, and publishing affairs (Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, 1999). She worked at the private technology company of Yotta Yotta Inc. which was in charge of globally distributing and transmitting large volumes of email information and security of electronic networks (2000-2002).

From 1992 to 1997, she prepared and recorded around 200 reports and radio interviews for RCI (Radio Canada International) about political and public events, news of Ukrainian studies in Alberta, and innovative approaches in science and agriculture.

In 1994, she covered the visit to Alberta of the former President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma. She has written over 50 publications in Ukrainian and in English in the North American and Ukrainian press. Among them: an article on the status of women in Canada and Ukraine “Sexual harassment: reality or fiction” (“Modernity”, June 1995).

Many of her articles are devoted to the work of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta, where she is currently working as a Communication & Research Assistant.

Dr. Robert Bohdan Klymasz was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1936. In 1957, he obtained a B.A. from the University of Toronto, and later studied at Charles University, Prague (1952), University of Manitoba (M.A., 1960), Harvard University (1960-1962), and Indiana University (Ph.D., 1971). He married Shirley Zaporozan in 1963, and they have two daughters, Andrea and Lara. In 1967, he joined the Canadian Museum of Civilization and served as its first programme director for Slavic and East European Studies. Throughout his career, he has held several prestigious positions, including the executive director of the Ukrainian Cultural and Educational Centre (Oseredok) in Winnipeg, visiting associate professor in Folklore for Memorial University's Department of Folklore, visiting professor in Folklore and Slavic Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles, and visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School.

In 1993, as a curator with the Museum of Civilization, Dr. Klymasz began a comprehensive study on community life in Gimli, Manitoba. Fieldwork on this project began in 1993 and continued on an annual basis every summer until the summer of 2001. The project, which became known as the Gimli Community Research Project (G.C.R.P.), was meant to offer insight on what makes the Town of Gimli a safe and prosperous town in which to live. The early work was low-key in nature, focusing on the town's life and culture, for example, attending meetings of the town's council, various public forums, proceedings of the local public law court, and meetings of the Board for the New Iceland Heritage Museum. Gradually, the fieldwork shifted to monitoring phenomena that gave Gimli its "dreamtown" quality. The final report was completed in 2002 and was entitled ""Dream Town": Art and the Celebration of Place in Gimli, Manitoba."

Upon his retirement in 2000, he was named Curator Emeritus with the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Dr. Klymasz is a renowned expert on Ukrainian Canadian folklore, having extensively written, published, and lectured on this subject. His publications include An Introduction to the Ukrainian-Canadian Folksong Cycle (1970), Ukrainian Folklore in Canada (1980), '??Svieto': Celebrating Ukrainian-Canadian Ritual in East Central Alberta Through the Generations (1992), and The Icon in Canada (1996). Dr. Klymasz also published many reviews of books and exhibitions in Canada's Ukrainian and Icelandic ethnic press. He continues to pursue his recent interests with grants from the University of Alberta (CIUS) and the University of Manitoba (CUCS).

In 2004, he delivered a paper at the Congress of Humanities and Social Sciences in Winnipeg. Dr. Klymasz was awarded the Marius-Barbeau Prize by the Folklore Studies Association of Canada (Laval University) for his studies in Ukrainian Canadian Folklore. In 2005, he completed the Archival Research Project on Walter Klymkiw, the conductor of Koshetz Choir, titled "Playing around with Choir": the Correspondence and Papers of Walter P. Klymkiw. The manuscript is held at the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections. Between 2006 and 2008, he completed several archival research projects including A priest, a maestro, a community: epistolary insights into the music culture of Winnipeg's Ukrainian community, 1936-1944 (2006-2007), Winnipeg Papers on Ukrainian Music (2008), Nuggets from the past: quotations on the Ukrainian experience in Canada (2007), Winnipeg Papers on Ukrainian Book Culture (2009), and Winnipeg Papers on Ukrainians and Aboriginals. In 2013 a Ukrainian translation of Klymasz's 1971 Indiana University PhD dissertation was published in Ukrainian, under the title, 'Ukrains'ka narodna kul'tura v kanads'kykh preriiakh' (Kyiv: Duliby, 2013) .

Natalie Kononenko was born in a displaced persons camp in Germany in 1946. She came to the United States in 1951. She grew up in New Jersey and attended University at Cornell, moving on to Radcliffe College and then on to Harvard University for graduate work. She received her PhD from Harvard University in Slavic and Near Eastern Languages, Literatures, and Folklore. She performed her PhD research in Eastern Turkey. She taught Russian Language and Slavic Folklore, and served as Assistant Dean and Chair of the Slavic Department at the University of Virginia. She led some of the first student groups to the USSR in the 1970-1980s. In 1987 she was one of the first US scholars to be allowed outside of Moscow. She lived three months in a hotel room in Kyiv doing archival research at the University and at the Academy of Sciences. This research lead to the publication of "Ukrainian Minstrels: And the Blind Shall Sing," Armonk, New York and London, England: M.E. Sharpe, 1998. After the break-up of the USSR Natalie started to do folklore research in rural Ukraine. From 1998 she visited many villages in Central Ukraine and recorded over 200 hours of interviews. This research lead to a soundfile database (see http://www.artsrn.ualberta.ca/UkraineAudio/). It has also produced many articles and will be used in a book on Ukrainian ritual.

In 2004 she was recruited as Professor and Kule Chair in Ukrainian Ethnography, Modern Languages and Cultural Studies, University of Alberta. In 2007 she published "Slavic Folklore: A Handbook," Westport and London: Greenwood Press. She served as editor of Folklorica, the Journal of the Slavic and East European Folklore Association for 5 years. This journal was internationally recognized and was instrumental in re-establishing the dialogue between folklore scholars in the former Soviet Union and their colleagues in the West.

Dr. Kononenko teaches folklore and applied folklore classes at the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies at the University of Alberta, for example, Folklore and Internet, Folklore and Film, Folklore and Animation, as well as research seminar where advanced students work in their communities to produce big documentation projects such as videos of important festivals. She is involved in two big research projects. The Sanctuary project, where Natalie works together with John-Paul Himka and Frances Swyripa, documents Byzantine rite sacral heritage on the Canadian prairies. The second project is broadly based on the use of technology in education.

Nadia Korpus was born in Regina, Saskatchewan on the 18th of August 1929. Her father, Peter Korpus (Korpesio) was born in Malniv, Ukraine in 1897 and followed his older brother, John Korpesio to Canada in the early 1920s. Nadia’s mother, Olga Wawruck, was born in Hubbard, Saskatchewan in 1903. Her parents had arrived in Canada in 1899 from Koshlyakeh, Ternopil Oblast, Halychyna, Ukraine. Peter and Olga were married in Hubbard in 1926, and settled in Regina where they soon started a family. Their oldest son, Roman (Raymond), was born in 1927 followed by Nadia in ’29. Nadia’s younger brother Donald (Donny) was born in 1930, and her younger sister Patricia (Pat Sembaliuk) was born later in 1935.

She was active in the Ukrainian National Federation and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada. Her passion for Ukrainian Culture was further encouraged through participation in the summer school “Kursy” which she attended in 1946-48. Nadia is noted for establishing the Rusalka Dance Ensemble in Calgary (1961-67), and having inspired many Ukrainian dancers, both male and female, to continue dancing and teaching across the prairies.

Composer, arranger, conductor, ethnographer and educator Alexander Koshetz (b. 1875, Romashky, Ukraine, d. 1944, Winnipeg, Canada) was born into a priestly family and studied at the Kyiv Academy and the Lysenko Music and Drama Institute. Koshetz began conducting choirs while still a student and directed the choirs of the Lysenko Institute, Kyiv University and the Kyiv Conservatory. He also worked at Mykola Sadovky’s Ukrainian Theatre and the Kyiv Opera House. In 1919, at the directive of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, he became co-founder and chief conductor of the Ukrainian Republican Cappella, which toured Europe and the Americas with the aim of introducing the world to Ukraine. Kozhetz produced large numbers of a cappella choral arrangements of Ukrainian folk songs. He also introduced American audiences to Mykola Leontovych’s “Shchedryk.” Following the fall of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, Koshetz settled in the United States. While living in the diaspora, he composed most of his liturgical music. From 1941 to 1944 he led annual choral conducting courses in Winnipeg. He also began developing a music curriculum for the Ukrainian diaspora, writing a history of Ukrainian choral music and produced a recording project on the Ukrainian choral tradition.

Nicholas Kostyniuk was born December 9, 1921 in Plain Lake, AB. His parents were Joseph and Annie Kostyniuk (Predyk). They married in 1917 in the old Plain Lake church and settled on a farm. They had four children: Mary, Nick, John and Tillie. Joseph died in 1938 at the age 44. Nick's older sister Mary married Peter Stepushyn in the fall of 1938. In 1946 Tillie married Alex Werbitsky of Innisfree. In 1949 John married Mary Chmilar of Two Hills and moved to farm in that area.

Nick contributed a great deal to running the household. He hurt his hip in an accident as a young man, causing a permanent limp. For this reason, he did not participate in the war. Nicholas taught at Plain Lake school for one year. He wrote and published poetry. He was active in the youth activities of his parish and was active in the Ukrainian Catholic church his whole life. In 1950, Annie and Nick moved to Edmonton. Two years later in 1952, Nick married Olga Soldan of Two Hills and settled in Edmonton. For a little while he owned a hat store on Whyte Ave close to 99 St. He worked at "Inland Cement" for over 25 years. Nick and Olga had two sons: Brent and Alan.

Annie lived in her home and kept boarders until early 1981, at which time she moved to the St. Basil's Senior Citizens' Residence in Edmonton. She passed away in March of 1975.

Composer Marian Kouzan (b. 1925, Isai, Ukraine, d. 2005, Fremont, France) moved to France at a very young age and began music lessons at the age of eight. In 1945 the entered the Paris Conservatory and graduated in 1948. He supported himself by taking various positions in the music entertainment industry and wrote music in popular music genres. Kouzan considered the 1960s to be the beginning of his composing career, which combined music for stage, and film and television soundtracks for the “show business” industry, as well as a wide variety of instrumental music for unusual combinations of instruments, with an emphasis on brass and percussion. Many of his works had Ukrainian themes, including the soundtrack to a documentary film about artist Jacques Hnizdovsky, the oratorios Neofity and Poslaniie to texts by Taras Shevchenko and the Chornobyl Requiem to a text by Vasyl Barka.

Edward Kozak was born 26 January 1902, in Hirne, Stryi county, Galicia. Caricaturist, illustrator, and painter; feuilletonist, satirist, writer, and editor. He studies at the Vienna Art School (1917) and O. Novakivsky's art school in Lviv (1926), illustrated and edited the satirical periodical Zyz (1926-1933) and Komar (1933-1939) in Lviv, and illustrated the children's magazines Svit dytyny, Dzvinochok (1931-1939), and Iuni druzi (1933-1934) and the books published by I. Tyktor. At the same time, he painted and participated in the exhibitions of the Association of Independent Ukrainian Artists (1933-6) in Lviv.

Emigrating to Germany at the end of the Second World War, he founded the humor magazine Lys Mykyta (1948) and headed the Ukrainian Association of Artists (USOM). In 1949 he settled in the United States, where he worked in animated television films, receiving an award for his work from the National Educational Association in 1957. He resumed publishing Lys Mykyta in 1951, and exhibited his paintings in Detroit, Chicago, Buffalo, Toronto, Edmonton, and Hunter (New York). For a time he illustrated the children's magazine Veselka.

Kozak is best known for his satirical drawings and writings, which amount to a running commentary on political and social developments in the Ukrainian community for over half a century. His caricatures of J. Stalin, which were reprinted in the German, French, Italian, English, Dutch, Polish, and Yugoslavian press, are recognized classics in the field. Many of his paintings deal with folk motifs and display a light-hearted humor and expressive colors; eg, The Market, Sich, Old Inn, and Village. He has published two albums of drawings with witty captions: Selo (The Village, 1949) and EKO (1949). As a satirical writer, he has created the incisive peasant philosopher Hryts Zozulia, under whose name he has published two collections of humorous sketches: Hryts' Zozulia (1973) and Na khlops'kyi rozum Hrytsia Zozuli (According to Hryts Zozulia's Common Sense, 1982). He has written numerous feuilletons and verses under different pen names. Some of the verses are printed in the collection Virshi ironichni, satyrychni i komichni (Ironic, Satiric, and Comic Verses, 1959).