The first group of German-speaking immigrants arrived in Calgary in 1892 from Yagodnaya Polyana having gone to Endicott, Washington, a few years earlier.
Another group of Volga Germans arrived around the turn of the century from Alexanderdorf (Caucasus), where their ancestors had moved several decades earlier. They settled in an area northeast of downtown Calgary that became known as Riverside but was called Germantown during the early settlement years. This area was annexed to the city of Calgary in 1910.
- Scheuerman, Richard D. & Clifford E. Trafzer. The Volga Germans: Pioneers of the Northwest (Moscow, ID: University of Idaho Press, 1985): 174.
- Williams, Vicky. Calgary, Then and Now (Calgary: Bodima, 1978): 113.
- Calgary (wikipedia)
- Settlement history of "the Germans" in Calgary between ca. 1900 and 1914 (Univ. of Alberta)
Colonies
View of Germantown looking east towards Calgary; the Langevin Bridge connecting the village to the rest of Calgary (ca. 1900)
Source: "Calgary, Then and Now," p. 113.