On the traces of Germany in Alberta

Did you know that...

...there has been a German football club in Edmonton since the 1950s?

Soccer connects people all over the world and brings them together - as it does in Alberta!
The region has been shaped by German influences at many levels during the past century. Three brothers from Bavaria settled in Edmonton in the 1950s with their grocery store for German delicacies.Oil production near Fort McMurray began in 1967 with bucket wheel excavators from Germany. In Kananaskis, winter paradise and the venue of the alpine skiing competitions of the 1988 Winter Olympics, an Allied prisoner-of-war camp was built during the Second World War, in which German soldiers were also imprisoned.

Traces

A guard tower of the Seebe Camp 130 © Library and Archives Canada, MIKAN no. 3514978

German Traces in Alberta
 ​The Seebe Camp 130: WWII Internment Camp

​Kananaskis, a winter paradise and the venue for the Alpine skiing competitions of the 1988 Winter Olympics has a darker history. During the Second World War, prisoners of the Allied forces, including Germans, lived here in an internment camp in the middle of the Rocky Mountains.

Bucket-wheel excavators from Germany in Fort McMurray © Valerie Hoover Collection, Fort McMurray Heritage Society

German Traces in Alberta
 ​German bucket-wheel excavators in Fort McMurray

The first commercial petroleum mining at the Athabascan oil sands near Fort McMurray in northern Alberta began at the end of September 1967. German machinery was used right from the beginning​.

The Victoria Soccer Club's playing field © Victoria Soccer Club

German Traces in Alberta
 The Victoria Soccer Club in Edmonton

Soccer is a sport that brings people together all over the world, so it’s not surprising that German immigrants to Edmonton decided to found "Victoria Edmonton", the city’s first German soccer club, back in the 1950s. 

The K&K Foodliner company logo © K&K Foodliner

German Traces in Alberta
 The K&K Foodliner in Edmonton

As in many parts of Canada, it is possible to find German delicacies for sale in Alberta. In Edmonton, there is a German family whose store – K&K Foodliner – has been providing both German immigrants and the local population with food since the 1950s.