Elkanah Billings was born on May 5, 1820, in Ottawa, Ontario.

He was an Ontario lawyer, journalist, and renowned as the father of Canadian paleontology. In 1839, he registered as a student at the Law Society of Upper Canada, and in 1845, he was called to the Canadian bar. In 1852, he founded the journal the Canadian Naturalist and Geologist and became editor of the Bytown Citizen (later renamed the Ottawa Citizen). He continued to practise law until 1856 when he was hired to be the first paleontologist for the Geological Survey of Canada. He moved to its headquarters in Montreal. He found his real vocation in geology and paleontology and spent the rest of his life studying and describing the fossils preserved in the museum of the Survey. In his lifetime, he identified 1065 new species and 61 new genera, including Aspidella, the first documented fossil of the Ediacaran biota. He was also a member of the Natural History Society of Montreal, the Geological Society of London, and had been awarded medals by the International Exhibition of London in 1862 and by the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1867.

In 1845, he married Helen Walker Wilson. He died on June 14, 1876, in Montreal, Quebec.

Native Montrealer Jerry Renewych began his career in music publishing with a degree in classical music and piano from McGill University and also attended the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. Born to Ukrainian immigrant parents in 1940, and baptized Yaroslas Bohdan Hrynewych, he seems to have decided to call himself Jerry Renewych as an adult. By 1967, he was working for Southern Music Company in Montreal, having written a few songs as “Jerry” Hrynewych and “J.B.” Hrynewych during the early 1960s. He became professional manager for the Canadian branch of Chappell, a music company, and moved to Toronto around 1972 as its general manager. During the 1970s, under the pseudonym “Bob Bilyk” (his grandmother’s maiden name), he partnered with Martin Butler as a song-writing team. The two wrote songs for Les Sceptres, Trini Lopez, and Ginette Reno, among others. One of the better known was “We Gotta Make It Together.” In 1980 he became a director of the Composers, Authors and Publishers’ Association of Canada and, in 1984, vice president of the Canadian Music Publishers Association. Chappell became part of the international entertainment conglomerate Polygram Group, which sold it to Warner Communications Inc. in 1987. The name was changed to Warner/Chappell Music Canada Ltd., and in 1992 Renewych became president. During the 19 years he held that post, he secured over 300 cover versions of works by his song-writing team. During this time, he was also on the boards of directors of several smaller music companies, including Felsted Music of Canada, Edwin H. Morris (Canada) Ltd., Burlington Music of Canada Ltd., Farrell Yangaroo Inc. and Intersong Belinda Canada Ltd. In 1997 he opened his own company, Golden Phoenix.