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To mark the 125th anniversary of the first Ukrainian pioneers arrival in Canada, the ribbon will be cut Aug. 7 at the refurbished home of Ed Stelmach’s grandparents.

The former premier of Alberta says his grandparents were one of 12 families who arrived in 1898 from the village of Zavyche in western Ukraine, or Austria-Hungary as it was then known.

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“They had planned to get off the train from Montreal in Saskatchewan,” he says. “But when they failed to see building materials such as trees and rocks, they stayed on the train and got off in Strathcona.

“They walked to the Andrew area (115 km northeast of Edmonton) and settled to homestead on land my wife Marie and I still farm today.”

Under the auspices of the Alberta Provincial Council of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, the home Nykola and Dora Stelmach built in 1916 has been moved to the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village on Highway 16, 50 km east of Edmonton.