Village News

The lands on which the Mennonites settled were the ancestral lands of First Nations peoples. The Canadian government was eager to secure these lands for their growing nation by encouraging settlers loyal to the Crown to establish themselves there, at least in part to prevent the United States from expanding northward. Before any settlement could take place, a Treaty between the sovereign peoples of the land and the Canadian government needed to be made. Anishinaabe signatories representing Brokenhead, Sagkeeng, Long Plain, Peguis, Roseau River, Swan Lake, and Sandy Bay First Nations signed Treaty 1 in August 1871 at Lower Fort Garry. Promises made in this and the other numbered Treaties were not kept.

In the years before the Mennonites arrived in Manitoba, the Red River Métis, using Red River carts, had established a robust trade along the Dawson Trail, carrying goods as well as the people who were arriving in the territory from the Great Lakes. It was some of these new arrivals, particularly those who were part of the Red River expeditionary forces under Major General Wolseley, that raised the ire of the Red River Métis. This led Louis Riel (1844-1885) and his compatriots to interfere with the government’s surveying process by stepping on the chains of the surveyors in 1869. Louis Riel forcing the issue of Métis rights with the Canadian government resulted in the Manitoba Act of 1870. The Manitoba Act established the Province of Manitoba and made provision for immigration to the new province. Although the Act ensured the rights of the Red River Métis people, these protections were never fully realized.

When the 12 Mennonite delegates arrived in Manitoba in June 1873, it was the Red River Métis who transported them through the lands the government had offered the Mennonites. The going was tough in the muddy Red River gumbo, thanks to a wet and rainy spring. When touring what was to become the East Reserve, the delegates stayed at the 3-story Hudson Bay post in Pointe-des-Chênes, today known as Ste. Anne. The help and hospitality of the Red River Métis were invaluable to the Mennonites as they scouted the lands and then, beginning in the following year, moved across the globe to establish new settlements in Manitoba.