DIDSBURY – The Didsbury area was recently included among many stops throughout the country along the Memories of Migration tour that recognized the centennial anniversary of Mennonites arriving in Canada from the former Soviet Union.
The July 6-25 tour that started in Québec City and ended in Abbotsford, B.C., included a couple of days in Alberta, where participants toured on July 20-21 the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village and visited the Didsbury area as well as Linden for a presentation of Russlaender.
Katie Harder, chair of the Mennonite Historical Society of Alberta, was quoted in a press release saying that her thoughts about the exodus’ anniversary “are tinged with thankfulness and gratitude for the fortitude and the faith of our forebears, the things they accomplished, their efforts and sacrifice.”
Harder noted they had to leave behind a homeland that “had once been welcoming, nurturing and productive; now a homeland where values, beliefs, and traditions were now being denied and life was fraught with danger. They left, but they were not defeated. They embraced life in a new country, celebrated their faith in God and built on that foundation.”
That history of trials and tribulations, she added, is “now mostly forgotten” by younger generations.
“Our children and grandchildren need to hear the story so that they understand their roots, to appreciate the legacy that was given to them and to learn from the past,” she said.
Area historical accounts established that in 1900, a group of thirty families of Prussian Mennonite descent came to the Didsbury area which was then part of the Northwest Territories to file land claims on land east of the town of Didsbury. Most of these families came from a settlement in Manitoba known as Bergthal. By 1907 about 40 families had settled in the area. The Bergthal church was started in 1901 with the establishment of a building in 1903.
A century ago, the first arrivals of some 21,000 Mennonites who fled the former Soviet Union boarded a train in Québec City in search of establishing new lives across Canada.
In 1923, several Russian Mennonite families came to the Didsbury area and, according to the Bergthal Church, the Mennonites living in the area were very generous and opened their homes and hearts to the newcomers who had arrived penniless after escaping the horrors of the Russian Revolution.
On July 6, some of those 21,000 Mennonite's descendants and others were set to replicate that journey by embarking on a cross-country train trip as part of Memories of Migration: Russlaender (Russian Mennonites) Tour 100. Throughout, participants re-enacted “the historic migration of the thousands of Mennonites who left communities decimated by violence and tragedy in the Soviet Union to come to Canada between 1923 and 1930,” reads part of a press statement.
Participants heard lectures, presentations as well as music along the way, and the tour also included a gala sponsored by the Canadian Pacific Kansas City Railway in Montreal, and also had “opportunities to learn about interactions between the Mennonite immigrants and Indigenous people, including the impact of their migration on Indigenous communities in western Canada.”
Organizers reported that about 123 people had signed up for either one or all three segments of the tour, which was organized under the auspices of the Mennonite Historical Society of Canada alongside Canadian Mennonite scholars and heritage enthusiasts.
