Pioneer Days shares the history of Mennonite culture, pioneering spirit

Every year Mennonite Heritage Village’s Pioneer Days brings about 6,000 people together to celebrate Mennonite culture and the pioneering spirit of the area’s first settlers.

“We hold pioneer days to remember the way that things used to be…,” said Jaysa Thiessen, program coordinator at Mennonite Heritage Village. “What we try and do here at the museum is live out the experience of the Russian Mennonites who settled here and the demonstrations and interpretations are a big part of that so we have tons of volunteers on the grounds showcasing what life used to look like so that doesn’t get lost.”

Life was hard for the first settlers having left their homes and community networks behind in Imperial Russia (now Ukraine) for a life of unknowns in a new world. Many would come in the spring or summer of 1874 and have to quickly build shelters before the chill of winter came across the prairies.

“It would have been difficult,” said Thiessen. “We don’t necessarily demonstrate that we just demonstrate some of the skills that they utilized here in building their life.”

Visitors to Pioneer Days can see traditional bread baking in an outdoor clay oven, grinding wheat in the windmill, steam powered threshing, blacksmithing, field work demonstrations and much more. There will also be kids activities and tasty Mennonite food like the ever popular waffles and white sauce.

A talk by Gareth Brandt titled, From the Violence of Munster to the Peace of Menno, will be given discussing the 500 year history of the anabaptist movement and Menno Simons. In the Gerhard Ens Gallery Mennonite Reflections commemorates the 150th year since the Mennonites arrived in Manitoba.

“I hope that (people) take away how important Pioneer Days are and what it showcases. What it describes is how important it is to the community and to remembering the past of Steinbach keeping that alive, and keeping the past of the area, and seeing that as a valuable thing that is worth paying attention to and worth spending time on,” said Theissen.