VGI Updates

The area in and around Winnipeg was first settled by immigrants from the Volga German colonies of Balzer, Bangert, Galka, Holstein, Hussenbach, Rosenberg, Stahl am Tarlyk, Unterdorf, and Warenburg.

Lydiatt, located southeast of Beauséjour, was settled by immigrants from the Volga German colonies of Bangert and Stahl am Tarlyk.

Known originally as the Reichenbach School District when it was organized formally in January 1902, it was renamed Lydiatt sometime before 1926. A one-room schoolhouse operated at the southwest corner of SW9-12-8E in the Rural Municipality of Brokenhead. The district was dissolved in 1968.

Volga German families from Bangert settled in and around Gladstone.

In the years 1893-1894 five families immigrated from Norka to the United States and from there to Canada, settling in the Stony Plain district near Edmonton, Alberta. More land became available in the west, so letters were sent to their homeland encouraging others to come to Canada, and in February 1899 an additional five families emigrated, arriving in Canada in April of that year.

In 1892 the area was known as Dog Rump Creek until a post office was named for the region and it became Stony Plain. Stony Plain was officially incorporated as a town in 1908.

Volga German immigrants from Norka began arriving in the Stony Plain area in 1889.

Volga German families settled in and around Spruce Grove, Alberta.

Lutheran immigrants from Yagodnaya Polyana settled southwest of Red Deer in 1892. Large numbers of German settlers began arriving in 1894, most coming from Volhynia.

The area of South Red Deer Lake became known as the Bashaw area, and eventually a town was established there also.

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.

Bashaw began as a rural area called South Red Deer Lake, and Volga German settlers (among other German groups) began settling in the are in the mid-1890s.       

In 1910, the Grand Trunk Railway Company built a line of the C.P.R. through the area that connected Edmonton and Calgary. A number of new towns sprang up along this line, and one of them was the town of Bashaw.

Colonía Susana was officially founded on 2 December 1886. A number of Volga German families settled there.