Pauingassi Trading Post
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…
Bernhard Schellenberg
In 2023, the Mennonite Heritage Archives celebrates 90 years of service to the Mennonite community. It can trace its roots to the Conference of Mennonites in Canada’s annual sessions held June 26-28, 1933, in Gnadenthal (near Plum Coulee, Man.), when Bernhard Schellenberg (1879-1966) was appointed archivist. Schellenberg advocated for the creation of the archive, citing…
Vineland List
How much can we learn from a list? This image is from a list of Mennonite immigrants from the Soviet Union (Russlaender) living in Vineland, Ont., in 1924. We can see family groupings along with church affiliations. In these early years, Mennonite Brethren and United Mennonites worshipped together. We can also note their housing situation,…
Gilbert Snider
Gilbert Snider stokes his wood-fed, maple-syrup evaporator in rural Waterloo County in 1954. The photographer, David L. Hunsberger, took many photos of working life in Ontario’s Waterloo Region. How much do you know about the working lives of your fellow churchgoers? For more historical photos in the Mennonite Archival Image Database, see archives.mhsc.ca. More moments from…
La Crete river landing
“How did the North become the North?” asks historian Gerald Friesen. By the Second World War northern Canada was experiencing an influx of “new technology, money and people.” River landings like this one near La Crete, Alta., were vital links to supplies and markets of the south. Although the first Mennonites who settled here came…
CMC Yearbooks
The Konferenz der Mennoniten in Canada—now Mennonite Church Canada—was formed in 1902. In 1928, the conference started publishing an official Jahrbuch (yearbook) which documented proceedings and decisions at the annual gatherings. Starting in 1946, an increasing an amount of Jahrbuch content appeared in English, rather than German. In 1965, the Jahrbuch become the Yearbook, though…
Henry Gerbrandt, missionary to Mexico
Henry Gerbrandt (far right) in Mexico ca. 1947. Henry and Susan Gerbrandt began their mission work with the fledgling Mennonite Pioneer Mission, arriving in northern Mexico on Dec. 21, 1945. Because money was scarce, their first Christmas dinner was macaroni and salt. The work was very trying. Not only did they have to build a…
Gift for the Queen
Fifty years ago, in June 1973, Queen Elizabeth II visited the Waterloo region. What gift could she be given to represent the area? These two bronze figures of an Old Order couple by Waterloo artist Renie Ellis were chosen. At the time, Mennonites constituted about 10 percent of the area’s population. For more historical photos…
Maria Kroeker
In 1893, Maria Kroeker married Johann Neufeld in Reinland, Man. The couple moved to Lost River, Sask. in 1911. Then, in 1926, when the Saskatchewan government insisted that Mennonite children attend government schools, Maria and Johann moved their 11 children to Paraguay, where they helped establish the village of Bergthal. Of the 1,778 people who…
Vernon Ratzlaff in Eqypt
Vern Ratzlaff, centre, worked much of his life within Mennonite institutions in western Canada and internationally, serving as a church pastor, Bible school teacher and radio preacher. From 1982 to 1987, Vern and his wife Helen served as Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) country representatives in Egypt. Bishop Athanasios of the Beni Suef diocese, second from…
