Alex Trofim was born in the Ciucurova (Çukurova) commune, Tulcea County, Romania but was Russian by heritage. He immigrated to Canada in 1914 when he was about twenty-nine years old and began homesteading one mile north of Kayville on SE-23-09-24-W2 that same year. By coincidence, or on purpose, one of his neighbours, Estafi Ritzko, was also a cultural Russian from Romania. Two years later, in 1916, he married his neighbour's daughter Katrina, ten years his junior. Together they farmed and raised thirteen children. They would be married fifty-five years until his death in 1971 at the age of 86. He lies in Regina Cemetery in Regina, Saskatchewan.