COLUMN: View from the Legislature – Movie depicts Mennonite Migration of 1870s

This past weekend, on an exceptionally windy Manitoba evening, my wife and I had the pleasure of attending the film screening of Where the Cottonwoods Grow. The movie is the telling of the extraordinary journey of the Mennonite migration to Manitoba of 1874. It depicts the historical journey of 20,000 kilometres that many Mennonites took leaving Imperial Russia in search of a country that would honour their religious beliefs and pacifism.

We watched the screening of the film at The Krahn Barn in Neubergthal and the setting could not have been more fitting to listen to a remarkable story of faith, hardship and perseverance. The film, created by filmmaker Dale Hildebrand, relies heavily on the historical record and the stories of the early Mennonite settlers to Manitoba.

It begins with the telling of the struggle to decide whether to leave Imperial Russia where there were growing concerns that they would lose religious freedom and be required to participate in military service. It was a heart wrenching decision that separated families and split communities. Leaving most of what they had worked to establish behind, there was no assurance that the journey would be an easy one or that they would ever arrive in Canada.

In fact, the film tells the difficult story of many adults who were too sick to make the entire journey, and of the deaths of both adults and children along the way. For many Mennonites, they had never previously left their village in Russia let alone boarded the many trains, ships and steamboats that would be required to make it to southern Manitoba.

For those that found their way to Canada and ultimately to Manitoba, they settled on either the East or West Reserve (on either side of the Red River). This is the land that had been set aside by the government for settlement. What awaited them was the oppressive heat and mosquitos of summer and the warning from Metis and First Nations people that the newcomers were ill prepared for winter. With their assistance, the first Mennonite families were able to both battle local illness and prepare for the coming winter, which was harsher than they had experienced before.

The film accurately recreates, with the assistance of intense historical research and the use of computer-generated imagery (CGI) the challenge of the journey of Mennonites to Manitoba. While it is a story that is somewhat known to those who have heard the history of the region, having it presented in a movie format brings to life the immense hardship that so many people undertook to preserve their religious freedom. It demonstrates clearly that the greatest possession these early Mennonite migrants had was their faith, and they would do anything to protect it and practice it in the way they held to be true.

As we drive around modern cities and communities in what was once the East and West Reserve, it is easy to forget the hardship that those early Mennonite families faced. Where the Cottonwoods Grow reminds us of how much we have to be grateful for.