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When History Meets the Environment Programme
GUEST SPEAKERS
Elder Claudette Commanda
Elder Claudette Commanda is an Algonquin Anishinabe from Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation in Quebec. She has dedicated her career to promoting First Nations people, rights, history, and culture in national and international settings. She has been inspired by the work of her grandfather, William Commanda, who passed on to her his teachings and passion for language and cultural preservation. Elder Commanda is the chancellor of the University of Ottawa and chief executive officer of the First Nations Confederacy of Cultural Education Centres.
Heather E. McGregor
Heather E. McGregor is an assistant professor of curriculum theory in the Faculty of Education, Queen’s University. She has conducted research related to history and social studies education, including Inuit education, historical thinking, experiential learning, and climate-change education. McGregor founded the Social Studies and History Education in the Anthropocene Network (SSHEAN) to develop teaching resources and enhance theoretical frameworks for social studies and history curricula that responds to the challenges of the climate crisis. She is also a co-investigator with the research project Thinking Historically for Canada’s Future, led by Carla Peck (University of Alberta).
Pierre Lahoud
Pierre Lahoud is a historian, photographer, and heritage advocate. Specialising in aerial photography, he has captured more than 800,000 images of Quebec’s landscape, which have been exhibited in Canada and abroad. He has published more than 30 books and is the co-author of the Curiosités series, which explores unusual and lesser-known places in Quebec. His frequent radio and magazine work has a dedicated following. Lahoud has received numerous awards, including the Conseil des Monuments et sites du Québec prize, the Robert-Lionel Séguin prize, and the prix des Dix, among others. He was also made a Knight of the National Order of Quebec. His personal website is www.pierrelahoud.com.
Tanya McCallum
Tanya McCallum is a land-based educator at Muskoday First Nation Community School and an advocate for cultural and linguistic preservation. A proud member of the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation and a Rock Cree nehithow from Pelican Narrows, Saskatchewan, she holds a masters degree in land-based education from the University of Saskatchewan and is currently pursuing her doctorate at Blue Quills University. McCallum integrates experiential outdoor learning with curricular goals, ensuring students are deeply connected to their cultural roots. Raised by her grandparents, she speaks nehithow fluently and leads land-based activities such as camping, fishing, hunting, and canoeing, which she shares on her popular Facebook page. Her work has earned her national recognition, including the Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence.
Glen Thielmann
Glen Thielmann's career as an educator spans 30 years, with the first 22 years spent teaching secondary social studies in Prince George, B.C. His current work at the University of Northern British Columbia, where he is a lecturer in the School of Education and a PhD candidate in environmental studies, centres on the living curriculum model and how identities are shaped by connections to people, place, and land. Thielmann is a member of the BC Social Studies Teacher’s Association executive and a director of the Pacific Slope Educational Consortium. He was a recipient of a Governor General's History Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2017 and a UNBC Teaching Excellence Award in 2024. His personal website is www.thielmann.ca.
EMCEES
Karen Pinchin
Karen Pinchin is a Kjipuktuk/Halifax-based science journalist and trained cook specializing in complex, investigative, long-form stories about food systems, environment, technology, and culture. She teaches in the non-fiction book writing Masters of Fine Arts program at the University of King's College, and has worked in newsrooms across Canada and the United States. Her first book, Kings of Their Own Ocean: Tuna, Obsession, and the Future of Our Seas, was reviewed in The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and Civil Eats, and named one of The Globe and Mail’s 100 Best Books of the Year. Pinchin’s award-winning writing has been supported by the Sloan Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts, and she is a regular contributor to Canadian Geographic and The Globe and Mail.
Marcel Martel
Marcel Martel is a professor of History at York University. As the Avie Bennett Historica Canada Chair in Canadian History, he has published extensively on nationalism, relations between Quebec and the French-speaking minorities of Canada, public policy and counterculture. He is currently researching the development of the wine industry in Canada and the arrival of cognac in North America during the second half of the nineteenth century. Martel is a member of the board of directors of Canada’s History Society.
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