Adam Ali is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto. He has completed a History Specialist B.A. honors degree at the University of Toronto at Scarborough in 2005. He then completed an M.A. in History at the University of Western Ontario in 2006. In this program he focused on Pre-Modern North American and European History and wrote a cognate paper on irregular warfare during the Seven Years' War in North America. He then completed a second M.A. degree at the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto in early and medieval Islamic History. His current research is focused on military history in the Islamic world in the medieval and early modern periods, specifically on mamluks (military slaves) and the mamluk institution (the institution of military slavery).
Class: Conflicts of the pre-modern Islamic world

Alexis Cooke is an artist/teacher with over 20 years experience teaching in Montessori schools, various art camps and municipal leisure courses. She has a Fine Arts degree from York and an Education degree from UOIT. Alexis brings a passion for art and people together wherever she teaches. She joined forces with Colleen to spread the joy of Gryphon Medieval Brass Rubbing (www.brassrubbings.ca).
Classes: Gryphon Medieval Brass Rubbings (I)
               Gryphon Medieval Brass Rubbings (II)

Amy Menary is a librarian who works at Wilfrid Laurier University in the library and at the Bronfman business library at York University. Her primary research interest is in genealogy but over the years she has done a considerable amount of research in costuming specializing in the medieval period.
Class: Costuming Research (1000 - 1800 A.D)

Anatolijs Venovcevs is a professional archaeologist. He received his Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree in archaeology from Wilfrid Laurier University in 2010. Since then, he has been employed at Archaeological Services Inc., a Toronto-based private archaeological consulting firm. For over two years, he has held the position of Staff Archaeologist and Material Culture Specialist, writing archaeological site reports and analyzing artifacts from excavations of Euro-Canadian archaeological sites in Ontario. Anatolijs has a wide range of research interests, including vertical and horizontal spatial analysis, the processes behind site formation and abandonment, industrial archaeology, nineteenth-century ceramics, and buttons.
Class: Dress for Life and Death: The Archaeology of Common Nineteenth-Century Buttons

Ashley Lefler is a recent undergraduate from the University of Toronto, specializing in Political Science and minoring in history. She focused her senior undergraduate years on Canadian and international security. She intends to pursue graduate studies where she hopes to focus on international conflict, especially the UN Charter promise of International peace and security, specifically in relation to nuclear weapons and humanitarian intervention; in addition to the institutions best placed to negotiate and fulfil this crucial promise.
Class: The Modern World

Bernie Roehl has been organizing events in the local kinky community for the past twenty years. He has taught dozens of workshops on various aspects of BDSM, ranging from general introductions to more advanced topics. Based at the University of Waterloo, he has diverse interests including improvisational theatre.
Class: 50 Shades of History - a look at non-traditional sexual practices in history

Beth Patchett is a stay at home mom and full time volunteer. For fun she sews and does textile research, or plays at being a Saxon lady. In Regia, Ædwen is the current Group Leader for Wynmerestow, the Ontario group of Regia Anglorium. She enjoys sewing new clothing for her family.
Class: Food and cooking methods in the Viking age

Bruce Blackistone describes himself as a "retired civil servant (National Park Service), part time blacksmith, and seasonal Viking ship captain." Active in medieval reenactment for over 43 years, he was one of the founders of the Markland Confederation and the Longship Company. He has skippered various vessels based on Viking longships for 40 years and has forged, crafted, or sewn numerous domestic, religious, and martial items from the early medieval period. In terms of literary output, he is best known as the author of Beowabbit, and is an actual footnote in the Beowulf Reader. Venues for his lectures and demonstrations have included the South Street Seaport Museum; the Mariner's Museum in Newport News, Virginia; the Smithsonian Institution for their Vikings 2000 exhibit; L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, Canada for the Leif Erikson Millennial Celebration in 2000; the American Swedish Museum in Philadelphia; and the Kalamazoo International Medieval Congress.
Class: The Longship Company: Things We Think We Know

Cancelled
Class: The Strange World of Human Sacrifice

Catherine Ollerhead DeSantis has been associated with various 19th century living history groups for the past 12 years as a cannoneer and side saddle equestrian. Currently she is writing a Master's thesis in Rural History at the University of Guelph. She is working on a companion book documenting 19th century housework and women's social networking. She also sits on the Board of Directors for the Dufferin County Museum and Archives, and has been a member of the Richard III Society since 2000.
Class: Return of the King, the grave of Richard III

Colleen Moynham is an entrepreneur who owns a personal/small business income tax business, owned/operated an appliance repair business, and has now joined with Alexis to present Gryphon Medieval Brass Rubbings (www.brassrubbings.ca) to students and adults alike. She also has an educational background as a graduate of Peterborough Teacher's College.
Classes: Gryphon Medieval Brass Rubbings (I)
               Gryphon Medieval Brass Rubbings (II)

Darrell Markewitz is a professional artisan blacksmith with over 30 years experience, who specializes in objects from the Viking Age. He designed, created and implemented both the 'Norse Encampment' interpretive program for Parks Canada and the 'World of the Norse' exhibit for the Cranbrook Institute of Science. He consulted on the Smithsonian's 'Vikings - North Atlantic Saga', and the Newfoundland Museum's 'Full Circle - First Contact' exhibits, as well as assisting a number of the institutions hosting both exhibits. His interest in iron smelting goes back to 2001. To date he has participated in over 45 experimental firings, in Canada, the USA and in Denmark. He has documented this work in formal academic papers, a CD-ROM, and extensively on the internet.
Classes: I'll Huff and I'll Puff - Observations on Air Delivery in Bloomery Iron Furnaces
               The Cutting Edge : Considering Blades

David Clarke (Foote the Potter), sculptor and potter is a retired teacher with a consuming interest in history and practical archeology, dealing especially with the construction of wooden structures.
Classes: Decorated mediaeval floor tiles
               Early timber frame building in the UK

David Stamper is a stay at home dad with interests in medieval and Renaissance warfare, arms and armour. He is actively involved in historical recreation through the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) and is the Chief Researcher for Blackthorn Productions, a company that puts on demos of Crusade era combat and culture for Grade 4 classes across Ontario. He is also an avid player of tabletop miniatures wargames as well as a practitioner of Medieval and Renaissance Western Martial Arts (WMA). Someday he will figure out he has too many hobbies.
Classes: To the Hilt: The Development of Sword Hilts from the Late 15th Century until the End of the 16th Century
               Heraldry in the Middle Ages
               Period Fencing Demonstration

Ellen Mervin is the proud owner of Ruach Crafts which has the largest selection of Celtic and Judaic needlework in Canada. She has been a stitcher for more years than she cares to admit to because it is so relaxing. She often comments that the only reason her four children are alive today is that she stitched when they were young. Ellen lives in Toronto where she is a primary school teacher but spends the summers and early fall at Highland Games, Irish Feis' and Medieval Faires.
Class: Counted Cross Stitch - Learn to Make Your Own Heirlooms

Ginevra Brown's interest in theatre started 30 odd years ago with her first starring role as the Canada Goose in her grade 5 play. She didn't actively pursue theatre as a vocation until she hit college, 10 years later. She attended both Sheridan College and George Brown Theatre School before trying a more hands on approach, to learning her craft. She spent some time as an assistant director with Acme Theatre Co. in Toronto, and learning from anyone willing to share their knowledge. In 2000, Ginevra moved to KW where she became involved with local organizations like KWLT, Theatre on the Edge and the Royal Medieval Faire. Ginevra has been acting with the Royal Medieval Faire since 2000 and has been a member of the creative team since 2008.
Class: Crafting a 'Faire' Presentation

Ildiko Csermely studied Elizabethan Drama at University, and this, together with her interest in textiles and long involvement with puppetry, makes her a valuable member of Mistress Nell's company.
Class: Saints and Sinners: Early Tudor Puppet Players

James Rimmer is a 4th year student in the University of Waterloo Honours History Business Coop program. James is an Editor-in-Chief of the University of Waterloo Historical Review, UW's undergraduate journal. His focus is 20th century Canadian business history. Conceptions of entrepreneurship, management and leadership in a for-profit context are his core focus.
Class: The Modern World

Jean Ross is a RN currently away from her work. She was a graphic artist in a previous career. She is interested in many things Medieval especially those of the Norse. She does so many things within the SCA that it is hard to pin down, but lately she is most interested in Beads and Spinning. But mostly beads. She is known in the SCA as THL Aislinne of Alainmor and has played since 1977. She lives with her very tolerant husband, Martin and their very beautiful Lab-mixed dog named Bella.
Classes: Beads: Open Torch Time I
               Beads: Open Torch Time II

Jennifer Laughtonis a senior undergraduate at Laurier studying Near Eastern Archaeology and Mediterranean Studies, focusing on the Middle East and Mesopotamia. She has spent the past eight months abroad travelling, which were spent teaching in Peru and studying in Southern Africa on a university exchange to Botswana. In her spare time she continues to add to her language repertoire and likes biking through the winter snow. She is looking to either pursue her Masters in Peruvian Archaeology at the University of Toronto, or go teach in Northern Pakistan.
Class: Art: Pots & Rocks

Jerry Penner is The Chain Mail Guy; he has been selling finished chain mail, knitting rings, and offering chain mail workshops since 1996. He published Chain Mail Basics in 1996 when he realized there was no formal lanuguage to describe knitting patterns to other people, similar to crochet or yarn knitting. His work can be found at various fairs in Southwestern Ontario including the Fergus Highland Games and the Royal Medieval Faire in Waterloo, and on his website at www.chainmailguy.com.
Classes: Chainmail - Beyond the Basics
               Chainmail for Beginners

Jo Duke started medieval recreation about 20 years ago, and unleashed a passion for creating historical garments, dyeing using natural and traditional dyes and all kinds of weaving. Known variously as Jorunn, Jhone of Wodecott, or Joan Woodcote, a weaver or tailleur, tradeswoman, goodwife and mother, she loves to relax with a beer and a game of chance and strategy.
Classes: Textiles 101: Colour and Pattern in Historical Fabrics
               Textiles 201: Historical Dress Design From the Ground Up

Jordan Burrows is a senior undergraduate at Laurier, studying History with a minor in Latin. Although his primary focus is in 19th and 20th century Russian history, he enjoys studying all areas of history, particularly the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages and the Social history of the Modern era. When he's not busy working at the Laurier Writing Centre or acting as a VP for the History Students' Association, he likes to study language, listen to music or pursue independent research projects. He intends to pursue graduate work in History after he finishes his undergraduate degree.
Class: The Conquest of Siberia

Judy McKay is a teacher who does not have enough time for her many hobbies. In the SCA, Iudith the Quiet Seeker, who likes to play with string, lives in an Anglo-Saxon village on the north east coast of 11th century England.
Class: Sprang - Circular

Karen Oddson and her husband are two of the founders of the Royal Medieval Faire which began in 1998. She has been on the board and on the creative team since the beginning and writes and directs the actors along with her creative cohorts. Interactive theatre has been a passion for Karen since she began improvising in University and she has performed with Theatre On The Edge since 1994. Throwing on a costume, an accent and a character and having a chat with an audience member is one of her favourite activities. She hopes you will catch the enthusiasm and enjoy the Crafting a Faire workshop!
Class: Crafting a 'Faire' Presentation

Karen Peterson works in Resource Sharing at the University of Waterloo library where she enjoys the opportunities the job provides to further her own research efforts and those of others. Over the last decade Karen has demonstrated or lectured on various parts of the Viking Era textile process at multiple museums in North America and attended an archaeological fieldschool on Gotland in 2011. Karen's primary interests lie in spinning, weaving, dyeing, and naalbinding. Karen is a member of the Dark Ages Recreation Company, and travelled to L'Anse aux Meadows in 2010 and 2012 to demonstrate many parts of the Viking Era textile process.
Class: Naalbinding: An Introduction

Karina Bates is an independent researcher, a member of The Gypsy Lore Society, The Medieval Pottery Research Group, The Peterborough Potters Guild, The Society for Creative Anachronism and the Dark Ages Re-enactment Company. Karina has spent the better part of twenty years researching and lecturing about the early and medieval history of the Romany people. In the past five years, she has developed a renewed interest in pottery and has begun an equally long journey researching and attempting to replicate historical finds. Karina is also interested in the textile field and is currently looking into historical knitting practices. She has lectured at the University of Michigan at Kalamazoo, the Peterborough Potters Guild and at numerous events for the Society for Creative Anachronism.
Classes: Fingerloop Braiding - beginner
               Fingerloop Braiding - Intermediate

Katrina Lauzon is a fourth year student at Wilfrid Laurier University majoring in Near Eastern and Classical Archaeology and minoring in Religion and Culture. Her research interests include the Archaeology of African diasporas in the Americas and the integration of GIS into Archaeology. Upon graduation, she is planning on continuing her education in either Archaeology or GIS.
Classes: Children: Face Painting and Colouring
               Children: Dragon Painting
               Children: Dragon Egg-Hunt and Goblet Ring-Toss
               Children: Playdough Runestones
               Children: Create your own Shield
               Children: Wand Decorating
               Children: Medieval Board Games

Ken Cook is a Nuclear operator at Pickering with a penchant for smelting iron, forging iron, working iron and ...well, you get the idea. Cynred Broccan is an 11th century Anglo-Saxon thegn who likes to get his hands dirty at the forge, working wood and timber and smelting iron. His contemporaries thinks he's a little nuts, but Cynred doesn't care.
Class: Living in 1865: Lessons learned with Livestock

Laura Stein is a perpetual student with far too many interests and not enough time. In the SCA, Urraca de la Mar hails from the Iberian Peninsula, but where exactly she's not telling. She is often found on the dance floor or the archery range if she's not working on one of her many projects.
Classes: Introduction to Tablet Weaving
               Medieval Sewing Pins

Linda Derderian has been a member of the Royal Medieval Faire's Board of Directors for 5 years, and as a result the medieval 'theme' has very much become a fixture in her life. She is the mother of Caitlyn and Carly Derderian who are both sword fighters in the faire, and Linda somewhat dubs herself the 'Fight Mom', often opening her house to all of RMF's fighters for practice, relaxation or a really good plate of nachos.
Class: Crafting a 'Faire' Presentation

Lynette Pike has always had a love of history and followed this path through academics (Hons. BA in History), a career in archival work and information management and through participation in the SCA. As Lady Eluned verch Angor, she plays with string, fibres, bones and weeds well enough to be honoured as a past A&S Champion for Ealdormere.
Class: Naalbinding: Beyond York Stitch

Magda Nusink is a recovering musicologist who came to puppetry through Children's Theatre and Sketch Comedy. Despite that, we love her dearly and the Company would not be the same without her!
Class: Saints and Sinners: Early Tudor Puppet Players

Margaret Trainor Cook is currently an Executive chef, providing meals for Senior's in the London area. A retired Nurse, with a specialization in Gerontology and a Bsc from U of Guelph. With 3 Children and 4 Grandchildren her life is busy. She and her Husband Ken live just outside of London Ontario . Margaret is a member of the SCA, but also enjoys the study of the Victorian era.
Class: Living in 1865: Lessons learned with Livestock

Marie-Luise Schegais a 4th-year Honours History student at the University of Waterloo. Her main interests are Early Modern, American, and Indigenous history. In the coming year, Marie hopes to develop her ESL teaching and Spanish skills in South America before continuing her post-secondary education.
Class: Music and Monsters

Mark Edward Patchett is a software developer and father. He has been involved in medieval recreation with the Society for Creative Anachronism for the past 20 years, and the living history group Regia Anglorum for about 8 years. Mark is currently responsible for all Martial activities in the SCA for most of the province of Ontario. Count Edward the Red is a Norman Knight who fought at the battle of Hastings, and later settled down in northern England where he married a Saxon lady. (How their son ended up as a Viking is still a mystery.) Edward enjoys fighting, with rattan polearms and swords and rapiers in the SCA and with rebated steel swords and spears with Regia Anglorum. He also enjoys building things - armouring, woodworking, woodturning, leatherworking, and even setting things on fire, and whatever else he can fit into his dwindling spare time.
Class: Pole Lathe

Melanie Burrett thoroughly enjoys working in a public school library, and also thoroughly enjoys researching and playing historical/medieval music in her spare time, as well as a kaleidoscope of other various other arts, crafts, and martial activities (which change over time, and sometimes come back around full-circle). But the two loves of her life are writing and music. They never change.
Class: Introduction to Troubadours

Melina Chestley has been involved in medieval recreation through the Society for Creative Anachronism for over 20 years. Her main focus of study is Early Rus culture but she has been known to have occassional forays into the Middle Byzantine period. She is a full time paramedic and a part time instructor at a college and is happily combining her professional background with her love of history and trying to figure out how medicine was practiced in the Medieval time period.
Class: Soldiers of God - Servants of Michael: Crusaders and the Medical Profession

Mila Little is an engineer employed in the federal public service. She has been involved in living history for 20 years with a particular interest in Anglo-Saxon England.
Class: In their own right: Women and Power in Medieval Europe

Natalia Handziukis a second year student studying Near Eastern and Classical Archaeology at Wilfrid Laurier Universtity. Her areas of interest include the development of the Roman World, The Minoan Civilization as well as their association to the contemporaneous cultures in the Mediterranean basin. She completed her field school at the Gournia Excavation Project on Crete.
Class: Art: Pots & Rocks

Nathan Kronefeldis an avid amateur of all things mathematical, both historical and modern, and the proud father of the Purpose of the Universe. Discovery of the SCA only stoked his historical interests, wherein he is known as Daniele di Padola, a poor Italian schoolteacher, but the Greatest Mathematician in All of Ealdormere (which is, sadly, equally lucrative).
Classes: The Story of the Cubic Equation (or The Secret Sordid Lives of Mathematicians)
               Algebra as Geometry

Nathan Laanstra graduated from Wilfrid Laurier University in the spring of 2011 with a BA in Historical/Industrial Archaeology and followed it up with a post-graduate degree in GIS with cartographic specialization from Fleming College. Since then he has worked for Ground Truth Archaeology out of Trenton wherein he is the senor historical lab technician, cartographer, and surveyor. His research interests include historical tobaccania, the 1830's rebellion period, and he is currently researching the use and application of UAV's for archaeological photography, information gathering, and site surveying.
Class: Out of the grey: archaeological investigations of the Motel 5 site in Kingston Ontario

Neil Peterson is a technical director and project manager in the software industry and a student of Archaeology at Wilfrid Laurier University. In his spare time he works with museums, libraries, schools, and various groups to promote an appreciation of Viking Era Scandinavia, and the application of project management to museums and historical projects such as this conference. His primary research interest over the last 20 years has been applications of experimental archaeology to the anthropological and technological processes of the Viking Era, specifically including iron smelting and bead making. He is a charter member of the local PMI chapter, a member of ExArc and the Ontario Museum Association, and a member of multiple re-enactment groups including the Dark Ages Recreation Company.
Classes: But I don't know how to present...
               Hávamál: Viking Words of Wisdom

Nell Coleman has been involved with the theater for many years, evolving easily from dancer to actor to choreographer to director to costume maker to re-enactor to the Artistic Director of Mistress Nell's Company of Strolling Puppet Players. In this last, her love of history, research, theatre and stitching seem to have met head on, as, under the banner, Saints and Sinners, the company perform both Fanciful Folk Tales and Bawdy Medieval Plays.
Class: Saints and Sinners: Early Tudor Puppet Players

Nichole Sotzek is a graduate of Wilfrid Laurier University (2011) with a BA Honours in Near Eastern Archaeology and Medieval Studies. She completed her field school in Jordan at the Wadi ath-Thamad project under Dr. P.M Michele Daviau. She has worked for Archaeological Research Associates Ltd. before going back to retail and volunteering at her church teaching Bible study. Her research interests include Southern Levantine burials, Iron Age rituals, and the Early to Medieval Church.
Class: The Church of Joan: Fact or Fiction?

Nick Oddson is a certified fight instructor with Fight Directors Canada and has studied stage combat from experts around the world. He has choreographed violence and fight sequences in more than 45 productions for theatres across the region for the last 15 years. Nick also co-founded the Royal Medieval Faire and has been instrumental in ensuring the safety and creativity of the combat scenes that have been showcased for the past 10 years! Nick hopes you will enjoy the Crafting a Faire workshop and take part in learning some stage combat.
Class: Crafting a 'Faire' Presentation

Nina Bates is an interpreter at Westfield Heritage Village, demonstrating historical recipes using the beehive wood-fired bake oven and open hearth cooking techniques. At other times, she can usually be found spinning, weaving, dyeing, playing in the garden, sewing and cooking amongst other things. As a member of Regia Anglorum, Gytha is a Norse woman who settled in England someplace and found a comfortable living as a weaver and dyer.
Class: Anglo - Saxon Bread and Bread making

Paddy Gillard-Bentley is the Artistic Director of Flush Ink Productions, a theatre that celebrates Site-Specific Theatre. Their signature event is Asphalt Jungle Shorts. She is a playwright, with over fifty productions of thirty some odd - some very odd - plays in Canada, USA and UK. She is the past President of The International Centre for Women Playwrights. Known in the SCA as Mistress Thaninieyaieres Ynyf Ys Draig Gwyrdd was born in Ireland and raised in Wales. Sometime in the 11th century, she met Baroness Mistress Tamarra Amalthea de Romany, who she apprenticed under to study Herbology.
Class: Herbal Workshop

Patrick Miller studied History at WLU and I am currently completing my MLIS degree at Western. I am a member of the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild and have been bookbinding for the last 8 months.
Class: Bookbinding

Peter Csermely normally works in IT and at translating Hungarian history books into English, but as our troupe has developed, he has become our 'Technical Guy' and Stage Manager. We could not manage without him!
Class: Saints and Sinners: Early Tudor Puppet Players

Peter Knezevici's bio will follow.
Class: Music and Monsters

Peter Monahan is a retired history teacher who has been re-enacting for almost twenty years. Originally a Private in the Royal Newfoundland Regiment of Fencible Infantry, he now serves as Quartermaster and Adjutant for the Crown Forces, North America, an umbrella group for 1812 re-enactors in Canada. Peter now works part time at one museum and volunteers at another. He is also writing a history of the Newfoundland regiment in the War of 1812.
Class: How it Was and How It Wasn't

Peter Westergaard is an IT systems developer in Toronto, and is grateful to work in an industry that forgives long hair and strange hobbies. In the SCA, Piero di Paxiti da Vincenza is a man well-known to the authorities in Venice, who travels with caution, drinks in moderation, and very rarely speaks of his work.
Classes: Measure twice, Scribe once
               Tiny Flowers in the Margin

Rachel and Sarah are sisters with a fascination for Vikings. They take two differing approaches to this. Sarah works as a field archaeologist in Southern Ontario and has yet to find a single runestone. Her interests are in trade routes, manufacture, and changes in personal adornment. She maintains her interest in Vikings is All Neil's Fault. Rachel, having decided that staying in the warm and dry with books is more enjoyable than dirt and weather, is currently working on her PhD at the university of Aberdeen where she's studying the role of women in the Christianization of Scandinavia. She blames her interest in the Norse on one Thorleif Hnakki of the Isle of Man, but is finding it difficult to take revenge on someone who's been dead for roughly a thousand years.
Class: The Good, the Bad, and the Annoyed: the not-quite-living Dead in Old Norse literature

Rachel Dewan is a fourth year student in Near Eastern and Classical Archaeology at Wilfrid Laurier University. With a particular interest in the Minoan and Mycenaean peoples of the Bronze Age Aegean, her research interests include the expression of gender and ethnicity in archaeology and artistic representations. She will be continuing her studies in Aegean archaeology in graduate school next year.
Class: Cultures and Offerings

Richard Schweitzer is a private school teacher from Orangeville, ON. A graduate from the University of Waterloo in history, art and music, he has been involved in living history and museum work since working in the 1980s at the 1914 living museum Doon Heritage Crossroads in Kitchener. Through DARC, Richard has presented Norse culture at several museums including Woodstock Museum, the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Cranbrook Museum (MI), Haffenreffer Museum (RI), Peterborough Centennial Museum and most recently L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. Currently, Richard is busy reconstructing dances and music from the Gresley manuscript, and recreating tools and other artifacts from the norse period.
Classes: Dances from Tudor England (Gresley Dances)
               Norse Sagas - the Bloody, Bawdy and Bizarre

Robert Schweitzer is a high school chemistry teacher with fifteen years of weaving experience. He was a guest instructor at WASOON 2008, a weavers and spinners conference, and has taught numerous classes across the province including many previous FITP sessions. In the fall of 2008, several of his pieces were part of the 'Grave Goods' exhibition at the Woodstock museum. He is currently working on recreating a 16th century Ethiopian tablet-woven curtain that was discovered by Prof. Michael Gervers of the University of Toronto in a cave church in Abba Yohanni.
Class: Brocaded Tablet Weaving

Roy Underhill, the instructor for the Cotswold Morris segment, has been dancing Morris since 1982. Instructor (Foreman) of Cold Barn Morris since 1996, he has danced morris in many places -- in pubs, on mountain tops, and in the high Arctic and loves it when the group goes to traditional Morris gatherings, called Ales, where we dance, feast, sing and make merry.
Class: Morris Dancing

Sajjad Nejatie is a PhD candidate in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations (NMC) at the University of Toronto. He completed his BA in Islamic History at York University in 2009. In 2010, he earned his MA in Central Asian/Iranian History at the University of Toronto. His doctoral research focuses on the early-modern history of Central and West Asia, particularly those areas constituting present-day Afghanistan.
Class: Conflicts of the pre-modern Islamic world

Rachel and Sarah are sisters with a fascination for Vikings. They take two differing approaches to this. Sarah works as a field archaeologist in Southern Ontario and has yet to find a single runestone. Her interests are in trade routes, manufacture, and changes in personal adornment. She maintains her interest in Vikings is All Neil's Fault. Rachel, having decided that staying in the warm and dry with books is more enjoyable than dirt and weather, is currently working on her PhD at the university of Aberdeen where she's studying the role of women in the Christianization of Scandinavia. She blames her interest in the Norse on one Thorleif Hnakki of the Isle of Man, but is finding it difficult to take revenge on someone who's been dead for roughly a thousand years.
Class: The Good, the Bad, and the Annoyed: the not-quite-living Dead in Old Norse literature

Sarah Schellinger is a PhD candidate in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto. She completed her B.A. at The Ohio State University in Anthropology in 2005. She then completed an M.A. in Art History with a concentration in Egyptian Art and Archaeology at the University of Memphis. Her M.A. thesis entitled "Two Royal Shabtis of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty and the Napatan Period in the Collection of the Institute of Egyptian Art and Archaeology at the University of Memphis (1981.1.39 and 1981.1.41)". She then completed a second M.A. in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto in Egyptology. Her doctoral research focuses on palatial architecture dating to the Napatan and Meroitic Periods in Nubia (ancient Sudan) and how the palaces function in the political and religious landscapes. In addition to her studies, Sarah also held a research associate position at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Class: Cultures and Offerings

Sheila Johnson has worked in the museum sector for the past 28 years, 18 of those as the Curator of the Woodstock Museum National Historic Site and the past ten as the Executive Director of Fanshawe Pioneer Village in London, Ontario. She is a history graduate of the University of Western Ontario and has just completed her Diploma in Cultural Resource Management from the University of Victoria in B.C.

Sheila and her husband Don have three daughters and live in an 1856 former Presbyterian manse in Embro, Ontario.
Class: Historic Unmentionables: The Evolution of the Woman's Undergarments during the Victoria Era

Simon Newcombe is a fourth year Archaeology and Medieval Studies student at Wilfrid Laurier University. Simon has a strong interest in medieval archaeology with a specific focus in the archaeology of conflict and he is currently looking to pursue graduate studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland.
Classes: Monster Mash: Evidence of Monsters in the Archaeological Context from the Middle Ages and Beyond
               Barbarians at the Gate

Steven Strang has an MA in Cultural Anthropology. He has been researching Old Norse culture for over 30 years. His carvings in bone and antler have been acquired by private collections in Canada and the USA, and also by Parks Canada and The Smithsonian.
Classes: Bone and Antler Carving
               Meaningful Scratches

Sue Kronenfeld is an enthusiast for many aspects of medieval and early modern history, but in particular she likes to explore the development of cultural norms over time and across geography. The more things change, the more they remain the same-kind of like running in place, really. Roselyne de l'Estrangere, as she is sometimes known, has taught dance and courtesy off and on in the SCA for some twenty years.
Classes: Dances from Arbeau (1588)
               Court Dances from 15th-c. Italy
               Courtly Love: a Medical Condition, or Merely a Social Disease?

Tara Bolker, the instructor for the Molly portion of the workshop, has taught dance and called for community and contra dances in Canada and the United States. She teaches Molly Dance to members of Wolf at the Door Molly in Cambridge, ON.
Class: Morris Dancing

Tracy Bryce is a Health and Safety professional and an ardent Anglophile with a life-long interest in English history. She has been a member of the Richard III Society for 21 years, serving as chairman of the Canadian branch for nearly 15 years. Her other historical passions include the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration and the War of 1812. She is a Friend of the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, UK and an admitted fan of Horrible Histories.
Class: The life and times of Richard the Third

Victoria Bick is an English and History graduate from WLU who keeps coming back for FitP. She is employed as a gardener in the summer, dreams and tweets about gardening in the winter, and volunteers as a gardener and a cook year round. She owns many books on agricultural history, and is jealous of the mildness of the climate in England. She is currently employed by Dundurn Castle as a Historic Gardener, which she enjoys a little too much.
Class: Don't Try This At Home: Victorian Pesticides and General Garden Poisons

Victoria Nagy is a fourth year archaeology student at Wilfrid Laurier University. She has always been interested in the scientific world associated with archaeology, but she wouldn't call herself a processualist. Victoria is fascinated by the medieval era and her ancestral link with the Magyars inspired her session this year. She hopes to pursue further studies in Archaeological Sciences in the future.
Class: Barbarians at the Gate

William Ernoehazy, MD, FACEP, is an independent scholar in historical European martial arts. His paper on pugilism and medieval combative arts was the first paper to be accepted for publication by Western Martial Arts Illustrated, the first peer reviewed journal for scholars of these arts. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Rocky Mountain Swordplay Guild, and a past Board member for the Tattershall School of Defense. He has been awarded the Laurel in the Society for Creative Anachronism for his teaching, research, and skill in the Western martial arts. His expertise as an emergency physician, and his experiences as a Naval officer, inform his research and teaching.
Classes: An ancient art, a long absence
               Grappling techniques when corps-a-corps -- ringen am Schwert

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