This picture is of the Pauingassi Trading Post, located 276 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg and 16 km from the Manitoba and Ontario border. Mission worker Henry Neufeld brought a request from community elders for a store focused on community well-being, as well as economic viability to the Conference of Mennonites in Canada, and a partnership developed with the newly established Christian Investors in Education group. On Feb. 26, 1969, the trading post opened to instant community approval on the front porch of a cabin. Now residents did not have to shop at the Hudson’s Bay Store in Little Grand Rapids. By 1971, the store had a positive balance sheet, and profits were returned as dividends. A new building and residence were built in the early 1970s. In 1973, a general store opened in Pauingassi, but soon ran into trouble with the community. The general store became known as “the store of trouble” and the trading post as a “store of peace.” The Trading Post was sold to a private businessman in 1989 and the store burned down in July of that year. Shortly thereafter, the Hudson’s Bay Company-owned Northern Store moved in to Pauingassi.
For more historical photos in the Mennonite Archival Image Database, see archives.mhsc.ca.
More moments from yesterday:
Bernhard Schellenberg
Vineland List
Gilbert Snider
La Crete river landing
CMC Yearbooks
(Photo: Conference of Mennonites in Canada / Native Ministries Collection)
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