Keynote Speakers

Erlend Moster Knudsen

Deputy Director, Pole to Paris

Keynote Presentation Title: Climate Scientists: Searching the Golden Mean Between Pencil Pushers and Activists

Erlend Moster Knudsen is a Norwegian climate researcher and science communicator. He has a PhD in Arctic climate dynamics and works as a PostDoc at the University of Cologne (Germany). He is also the deputy director of the international climate awareness campaign Pole to Paris. For the latter, he took on a 3000 km run from the Norwegian Arctic to the climate summit COP21 in Paris last fall. Along the way, he gave talks in schools, universities and open events, shared climate information via traditional and social media, and met with politicians and members of rural communities.

Andrée Cazabon

Filmmaker, Cazabon Productions

Keynote Presentation: Title: Lessons Learned in a Remote First Nation Community During a Unique Reconciliation Trip in Their Homes

Award-winning documentary filmmaker Andrée Cazabon completed her fifth film in 2010, Third World Canada on the impact of living conditions for children and families on First Nations reserve. Tasked by K.I. (Kitchenuhmayooosib Inninuwug), the community featured in her film to ‘make the invisible – visible to Canadians’ Andrée Cazabon put her film career on hold to dedicate ten years of her life to reconciliation. She continues to bring the film and its reconciliation toolkit to various sectors and circles in Canada to raise awareness and results.

Angelica Mckay

Youth Member, Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation

Angelica Mckay is a proud member of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (kitchen-ooh-may-koo-sib I-nni-noo-woog – or K.I. for short) on Big Trout Lake in north western Ontario.

A grade 11 student at Queen Elizabeth School in Sioux Lookout, Angelica continues to be one of the organizing Youth Leaders for the reconciliation trip held annually in her community. The trips are featured yearly in the Toronto Star, inviting Canadians to spend a week in the family homes to build bridges of friendships and break down misconsceptions through immersive education and daily teachings. Angelica and the Youth Leaders were responsible for bringing the first ever overnight Royal visit in an Indigenous community worlwide in 2014 with the Countess of Wessex and the Premier of Ontario. In 2016, the Youth Leaders and their partner, Productions Cazabon brought the reconciliation trip along with trip guest, Mayor John Tory to another remote fly-in community, Bearksin Lake First Nation. Angelica Mckay was honoured for her service and leadership by receiving on of the highest recognition at Bearksin Lake, the white eagle feather.

In 2017, the Youth Leaders will be hosting their 5th reconciliation trip.

Keith Roulston

Journalist, Newspaper Owner, Theatre General Manager

Keynote Presentation: Talking to ourselves: Why rural people need to communicate within and between their communities and how the system is breaking down

Keith Roulston grew up on a farm near Lucknow, Ontario, attended elementary school in the village and was in the last graduating class of the local high school before it was closed. He studied journalism at what is now Ryerson University and began his career with the Clinton News-Record, part of a small chain of newspapers. In 1971, at the age of 24, he and his wife Jill bought the Blyth Standard. On his first week in the village he discovered the wonderful but run-down theatre in Blyth Memorial Hall and ended up bringing together the team that founded the Blyth Festival in 1975. In 1979 he left publishing to become the theatre’s first full-time general manager. He returned in 1985, setting up a community-owned newspaper to serve Blyth and Brussels and surrounding area. The Citizen was chosen best newspaper in Canada in the 1,000 to 1,999 circulation category in 2016. He is a former director of the Ontario Community Newspaper Association where he initiated a special task force for independent newspapers. He lives in the country near Blyth.