Village News

The second year of Mennonite immigration to Manitoba began earlier than in 1874. The first group to arrive at the confluence of the Rat and Red River, May 12, 1875, had overwintered in Ontario. The Kleine Gemeinde, who arrived in Quebec aboard the Austrian on June 18, disembarked from the river steamer Dakota onto Treaty One territory at the Rat and Red on June 29. The landing site itself is part of Metis River Lot 592. Over the summer a total of eight shiploads with a mixture of Bergthal, Kleine Gemeinde and Chortitzer immigrants would arrive in Quebec, with some families remaining in Ontario to earn money for the next year.

It had been clear from the outset of the migration that the eight townships of the Mennonite East Reserve would not have enough land, and Jacob Shantz had already explored the area west of the Red River along the international boundary to find additional suitable land, reserving 17 townships there, also part of Treaty One territory. Consequently, most of the river steamers in 1875 carried a mixture of those intending to continue on to the Rat and Red landing, and those planning to disembark near West Lynne, a customs office on the west side of the Red River from Emerson. West Lynne became the point of entry to Manitoba and post office address for those who settled on the newly established Pembina Mennonite (West) Reserve.

For reasons that are difficult to understand, the 17 townships reserved for the Mennonites had not been surveyed by the time the first Mennonites disembarked at Fort Dufferin in July 1875. Even the newspapers reported: “a whole range of townships along the Boundary… which are well known, comparatively speaking, to be the garden of the Province, yet those splendid townships remain to this day unsurveyed…” [Manitoba Free Press June 26, 1875.]

Fort Dufferin, located on a river lot a few miles north of West Lynne on the west side of the river was built in 1872 as the headquarters of the British-Canadian contingent of the North American Boundary Commission that surveyed the 49th parallel north. In 1874 it became the mustering point for the newly organized North West Mounted Police. In 1875 it became the barracks for the Immigration Department. At the arrival of the first Mennonites, the newspapers of the day grandly proclaimed, that “no emigrant (sic.) sheds in the North-West surpass these barracks in accommodations.” [Manitoban July 17, 1875].

On July 14, 1875, the first 53 families destined for the new West Reserve disembarked from the International at Fort Dufferin. However, since that Reserve had not been surveyed, they stayed at Dufferin. Several more groups landed there over the summer until about 1,000 Mennonites crowded into barracks designed for 300, and children, having experienced stress, poor nutrition and close quarters for weeks, began to die. Reports indicate that there seemed to be a funeral every day. Those graves have not been discovered to this day. While at Dufferin, minister Johann Wiebe of Fürstenland called a meeting to create a new Gemeinde (church) and was confirmed as the Ältester (Bishop) of the group which consisted of both Fürstenland and Chortitz immigrants, now to be called Reinlӓnder. Isaak Mueller was elected as civic overseer (Obervorsteher) of the settlement.

In the meantime, the prairie was finally surveyed into a grid with townships six miles square, containing 36 sections one mile square, each having 640 acres. A household was entitled to a quarter-section homestead of 160 acres for $10 and a pre-emption on another quarter which could be purchased later for $160. Conveniently, Emerson had a Land Titles office. Although the Hamlet Privilege was not yet passed, the Mennonites, unlike their non-Mennonite neighbours, intended to settle in villages as they had in Imperial Russia.

Only after some weeks could the immigrants leave Dufferin to settle on the Reserve, choosing land in the western part of it. Once a village site was selected, all the land was pooled to be divided into house plots (220 feet wide) along a central street, and long strips of arable land and hay land allowing each family to have a share of the best land. Cattle were grazed on a large community pasture managed by a herdsman. Smaller strips called Schadenruten (buffer plots) were placed at the edges of the village land as a safeguard against prairie fires or other damage, to distribute the risk equally among all. By winter they had established 18 villages, mainly with sod huts and teepee-type sheds (serai).

Métis surveyor Roger Goulet accompanied the Mennonites to their land and helped them to establish village sites. On the West Reserve, where the land was quite uniform, this old open-field system worked well. In August 1875 Shantz built two storehouses in Emerson for the Mennonites. The grasshopper plague did not materially affect these newcomers since they had no gardens or crops, although watching the after-effects must have been discouraging. Financial help again came via the loan secured by Ontario Mennonites.

In 1876, 442 Mennonites that had stayed in Ontario over winter left Sarnia on May 9 on the Ontario, together with a large group of French Canadians from Quebec. It was early in the season, and a freak windstorm chased ice floes together on Lake Superior, trapping the ship in 15 feet of ice many miles from Duluth for about nine days. Food and fuel became scarce. A group of French-Canadian men braved the ice to go for help. On May 24, a change in the weather opened a water channel again.

About 1350 more Mennonites arrived in Quebec in 1876, many disembarking at Dufferin. Combined with the Mennonites on the East Reserve and Scratching River, a total of 6940 Mennonites had arrived by 1880, although some families returned to the USA over that same time frame.

The arrival of Mennonites in Manitoba in 1875 overlapped somewhat with the arrival in Winnipeg/Gimli of an advance group of Icelanders from Ontario in early October of that year, followed in 1876 by another 1,200 Icelandic settlers directly from Iceland and more in later years, becoming the second large bloc of European settlers to arrive in Manitoba.

The Mennonites who arrived in 1875-76 proved that it was possible to establish successful farms on the open prairie without trees, rivers or shelter. The West Reserve turned out to have the best agricultural land in Manitoba. In the next five years, over half of all the East Reserve Mennonites moved across the river to what has ever since been called Jant Sied (other side) by remaining East Reserve Mennonites, and Ditt Sied (this side) by the West Reserve Mennonites who, naturally, considered the East Reserve to be the true Jant Sied.