Village News

Throughout the winter the Mennonite Heritage Village office is abuzz with events, an education program, repairs, planning budgets and exhibits plus connecting with donors, members, volunteers and visitors (including several rentals and gift shop customers each week). The grounds, however, are quiet. Each week I stroll around the village to see if everything is in place. I check that the furnace is working in the Summer Pavilion, I flush toilets, check for leaks, feed the barn cats and check the traps.

Of our 30+ heritage buildings and monuments there is one that looks different each time I go out. Sometimes it startles me because like a living being it has moved since the last time I saw it. It is the only building in Canada that quietly puts its face into the prevailing wind each day. Our Dutch windmill, in a village of stalwart heritage buildings standing still in time, is a comfort to me. The fan tail of our windmill automatically adjusts the cap and sails and is a unique feature. Most windmills in the world do not have a fan tail, but are adjusted by people. As you are stuck at home, remember the windmill at MHV is still moving and roving.

For over 50 years, from Spring to Fall our grounds have always been open. At 8am staff go around and unlock all the buildings and prepare them to meet the guests. Every year around 50,000 visitors of all ages, backgrounds and nations wander the 40 acres of our galleries and village. They eat vareniki, buy a book, and find a friend. As Tim Reeve, Deputy Director of the Albert and Victoria museum recently said, “Opening a museum every day is complex, thrilling, joyful and life-affirming. It’s why many of us choose to work in the sector in the first place. For those of us lucky enough to work in museums, that joy has been replaced with an anxiety shared across the nation, and two of the most challenging and surreal weeks of our professional lives.”

On Wednesday, March 18 at 5pm Mennonite Heritage Village closed its doors to the public and then reduced the hours of our staff because of the global pandemic that had arrived in Canada. To the staff it felt counterintuitive to close a museum, but we knew it was the right thing to do for our community. We have put our museum into an induced coma knowing that at the right time we will be able resuscitate it and help bring healing to our community with it. Our award-winning Russländer exhibit has had its life cut short and is currently being dismantled as the MCC Centennial exhibit takes its place – piece by piece.

Again Tim Reeve says it best for the Mennonite Heritage Village too: “The wider work of the museum must now continue – remotely – for our people and for our public. Over the past week we have transitioned to a ‘new normal’. Institutions have a reputation for their slow-paced, analogue ways of working and yet in the past week we have adapted to an entirely new way of working. IT teams across the sector are the heroes of the hour and we are swiftly learning how to mute and unmute… Two weeks later… across our online community, the website has become the building, social media channels replacing the hubbub of visitors, the enthusiasm of tour guides and the special intimacy of an exhibition gallery. We are engaged and we are open.” Like the windmill, we too are a people that are soundly grounded and yet ready to make use of the prevailing forces of the day for our common good.