| HISTORY/BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: | The Viewegar family immigrated to Canada from Leipzig, Germany in 1912, and Hugo Viewegar began a short-lived real estate business in Edmonton. He then opened a photography business in 1913, which had an auspicious beginning. He was commissioned by the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta to photograph official functions at Government House. He was also perhaps the only local photographer to capture some area images with an early colour process, the autochrome, which he learned from the Lumiere Brothers in France before his departure to Canada. Due to the conflict of WWI and his German nationality, he was forced to leave his photographic business in 1914. He and the family took up a homestead at Edgerton in northern Alberta. ; Hugo's son, Lute, helped out on the homestead, but eventually left home to work on a ship and then in a logging camp. He returned to Edgerton to go into a partnership with his older brother operating a threshing crew and a land breaking business, which perished in the Depression. He worked further in the boating and airplane industry and spent much of his time in the Northwest Territories, where he also became an avid amateur photographer. At this time, the spelling of the Viewegar name changed to Vieweger. |