There once was a person who moved to a northern climate such as ours. While experiencing their harsh winter he let his neighbours know, “someone here must have done something very, very bad and we are still paying the price for that transgression!” At the Mennonite Heritage Village (MHV), we don’t believe this is true of Manitoba. In fact, we want to be a place where everyone, including newcomers, can enjoy winter in Canada.
Author Parker Palmer writes about how in their region, newcomers often receive specific advice for surviving winter; “the winters will drive you crazy until you learn to get out into them.” Therefore, we invest in warm clothing, winter gear, and plan events throughout the winter. If we don’t, cabin fever can become a reality, or as Mennonites could say ‘semlin fever’ (which are the sod houses the first Manitoba Mennonites built to survive in). During the harsh winters of the 1870s and 1880s there were many winters where households were buried under snow for days at a time. In our Village Books & Gifts Shop we have a wonderful activity booklet for children that tells the story of ‘Sush’ and how her family survived being stuck in the semlin their first winter here. Their ingenuity will surprise you.
In the 1800s, cabin fever was another term for typhus, a sickness that relegated sailors to isolate in their ship cabin. However, it eventually became associated more directly to what North American settlers were feeling when confined to their log cabins all winter. Could this be a real condition? In 2015, the TV show MythBusters attempted to recreate these conditions and answer the question: cabin fever, fact or fiction? Dailycare.com provided this report: “the two presenters, locked in individual cabins for days of snowy, dark Alaskan winter with no outside contact or entertainment, tested positive for irritability, forgetfulness, restlessness and excessive sleeping, thus proving that cabin fever exists, and winter is the worst.”
The good news is that MHV has just received a Travel Manitoba Tourism grant to provide a lot more winter programming next year. We will help people ‘get out there’ all winter long. The hope is to provide a skating lane, snowshoes, a winter path through our village and woods to walk, bike or kicksled and more! It is amazing how much better you feel the rest of the day after some outdoor activity. A couple times a week goes a long way to keeping semlin fever away!