• born in Mantioba
• parents emigrated from Ukraine
• M.F.A., University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba; also studied photography at the Banff Centre School of Fine Arts, Banff, Alberta, and film at the University of Manitoba

Documentary photographer Ernie Kroeger participated in the 1984 Gallery-in-Transit experiment in Winnipeg, replacing ads on buses with contemporary photography for three weeks. That same year he composed the series Photos of everyday scenes, what is called the backyard nation and what Randal McIlroy (1986) has referred to as a "peaceful, almost off-handed shot." His 1986 Conversation Pieces, a look at family life, also suggests a realism that presents small slices of the ordinary. Kroeger's Broadview Project (1988) focussed on the commonplace scenes from Calgary's Broadview Road, photographed over the course of one year. In 1992 Kroeger became interested in the landscape of the Rockies, working with places of historical significance to Canadians, sometimes jokingly placing himself within them, or playing with how some of them, such as our Great Divide, have been falsified. The following year he took part in the group show, Search, Image and Identity: Voicing Our West, which was about the immigrant experience in the Canadian West. Reviewer Katherine Lipsett discussed the aim of the show: "The immigrant experience is undeniable in western Canada, and for many first and second generation Canadians that experience is both liberating and limiting. The lack of historical depth within families may be a blessing, though it is the result of a dislocation and disruption of the extended family. Immigrants who arrived in Canada often chose to start new lives by placing the past in the past, refusing to discuss their reasons for leaving the 'old country' with their children" (1993). In his part of the exhibition, Kroeger recovered some of his own history by telling the story of his parents’ immigration from Ukraine, using photographs and mixed media. In 1995 he published an excerpt from a similar series, Family Stories, in Blackflash magazine. In 1995, Kroeger won the Barbara Spohr Memorial Award at the Banff Centre for the Arts for Family Stories, which he put towards creating a catalogue of the series.

---."The indescribable lightness of being photographed. Ernie Kroeger's Broadview Road project." Border Crossings 7, no. 1 (January 1988): 54-61.

Garvey, Susan Gibson, et al. Rephotographing the Land: Marlene Creates, Patricia Deadman, Lorraine Gilbert, Ernie Kroeger, Sylvie Readman, Sandra Semchuk. Halifax, Nova Scotia: Dalhousie Art Gallery, 1992.

Kroeger, Ernie. "Art on the land." Parallelogramme 18, no. 3 (1992): 68.

---. "Family Stories (an excerpt)." Blackflash 13, no. 1 (Spring 1995): 10-17.

---. "In the hot zone." Blackflash 15, no. 1 (Spring 1997): 18-20.

---, and Leonard Schlichting. Ernie Kroeger: Photographs of Mom and Dad/Leonard Schlichting: My Sister, Myself. Toronto, Ontario: Gallery 44, 1990.

Lipsett, Katherine. "Place meaning." Blackflash 11, no. 4 (Winter 1993): 5-8.

McIlroy, Randal. "Conversation Pieces a warm show." Winnipeg Freee Press, 28 June 1986, n.p.

MvIvor, Mike, et al. Return to Exceptional Pass. Banff, Alberta: Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, 1991.

Milthorp, R. "I want to have sublime feelings." Blackflash 10, no. 4 (Winter 1992): 5-6, 12.

Review: Photocopy of Selected Events at Plug-In Gallery. Winnipeg, Manitoba: Plug-In Gallery, 1982.

A Sense of Prairie: Photographic Exhibition. Calgary, Alberta: Alberta College of Art Gallery, 1984.

Thomson, Mary Jane. The Banff Centre Mountain Campus. Banff, Alberta: Altitude Publishing Canada, 1993.

Veith, Ulrike, et al. Search, Image and Identity: Voicing Our West. Toronto, Ontario: Gallery 44, 1994.

Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies: Donor Report, 1993-1996. Banff, Alberta: Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, 1997.

Williams, Carol, et al. Search, Image and Identity: Voicing Our West. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan: The Photographers Gallery, 1994.