Hi Stella,
Thanks so much for all your interest & advice.
I also have his 1940 national registration. On this paper he says he is of Norwegian heritage & born in Montreal. I think thats a bit of a fib, he had the strangest french-canadian accent we've ever heard.
I grew up thinking we were Norwegian, Grampa said he was Norwegian but didn't speak it. It was really my future father in law that told me Kon was Russian not Norwegian.
I first posted to Russia about the place name. My responses were that it was most likely a phonetic spelling of Bila Czortkiv, & was redirected to the correct posting country.
I wrote to someone in Russia & they told me that Billa could be a phonetic spelling of the color white in Russian, but the other word made no sense at all.
I'm going to join infouke, & post to a Latvia message board like you suggested. I've posted in Russia, Poland/Ukraine/Galacia, & Norway trying to find this man... I could be searching the wrong surname.
Was there ever a big fire in Mundare circa 1890's to 1915?
Cordially,
Lisa