[1] Nestor Dmytriw was one of the so-called American Circle, a group of young seminarians who, while still in Lviv, resolved to emigrate to the United States in order to improve the religious, civic, and cultural status of the Ukrainian immigrants.

[4] Through the Ruthenian National Association, Dmytriw arrived in April 1897 to serve the spiritual needs of the Ukrainian Canadian settlers.

[5][6] In the fall of 1897, Father Dmytriw spoke up in an article in the Winnipeg Free Press defending the Ukrainian immigrants, deflecting a scathing attack on them by another newspaper.

They are located fifty miles northeast of Edmonton in the vicinity of Limestone and Beaver lakes, Edna being their post office centre.

Those who have been the longest in the country he finds to be very well off, having as many as twenty-five head of cattle, forty acres under cultivation, good farm buildings and everything in splendid order.

He thinks it would be a great advantage to the settlers if – he could, as was done in the case of Dauphin, induce one of their fellow countrymen able to speak English, to come from Pennsylvania and open a grocery store in the colony.

The remoteness of the locality and the lack of means of communication render it impossible for poor people to find employment by which they can earn a little money.

[8]Dmytriw’s records showed 15 families, with children, 78 persons, were settled in Trembowla, the oldest Ukrainian settlement in the vicinity of Dauphin in 1897.

In Winnipeg, the population was 200, some spending their winter in the Immigration Hall,[9] waiting to leave for their homesteads in spring, while others had decided to stay in the city and were looking for employment.