“Three landscapes confront the visitor to
the western interior of Canada: The prairies,
which roll seemingly without end west and north from the Red River toward the
Rockies and the Arctic: the parkland, where a profusion of birds and
lakes, gentle hills and valleys, and fertile soil suggest a crescent-shaped
oasis at the northern edge of the prairies; and the boreal forest, with
rock outcroppings, cold lakes, and miles of spruce and pine as little traveled
today as they were 400 years ago.”
Gerald Friesen, The Canadian Prairies: A
History[1]
Gerhard Willems, my great-great grandfather,
died in the community of Rosthern, Saskatchewan in1900, a year after his
immigration from Minnesota. The town of
Rosthern and the farms around it lie on a peninsula of land formed by the
converging of the North and South Saskatchewan Rivers. The land north of the North Saskatchewan
River is boreal forest, a region of ice-scoured rock, myriad lakes,
poplar, spruce and pine trees that
covers the northern two-thirds of the province.
Just below the boreal forest is the narrow strip of fertile soil
classified as parkland, a land of rich black soils with high organic
content. This parkland, the best farmland in the whole
province of Saskatchewan, is the land five of Gerhard’s children chose
as their new home. As someone has said, Mennonites
have a nose for good soil.
This good land is the reason why so
many Mennonites decided to pick up and move hundreds of miles north, move from
one place with extreme weather to another that was even colder. And much of this land was almost free. Canada had Homesteading policies similar to
those in the U.S. All that was needed to
acquire a quarter section of land—160 acres—was a ten dollar registration fee,
construction of a home and the clearing of at least ten acres within three
years. And people could file on another
quarter section after these conditions were met. Of course, this “free” land required a lot of
work, but Mennonites were used to that.
And it required money to develop, but all farming involved financial
investment. Here at least, the
Mennonites from Mountain Lake were getting in just as this region was opening
for settlement, before all the good land was taken. And they were not going into a completely
unknown land. Mennonites from Russia were
quite well settled into the place by the time Gerhard Willems’ children began
arriving in 1899.
Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan: “Rosthern Mennonite Settlement”
“A
compact reserve consisting of as many as twenty villages was established south
of Rosthern …by Old Colony Mennonites from Manitoba in 1895-1905. The social organization of the conservative
colonies in south Russia was systematically duplicated in North-central
Saskatchewan: Wide streets (a custom developed in Russia due to the possibility
of thatched roofs catching fire), a Schult (village overseer), and German
language schools and churches. These
adjoining Mennonite settlements then expanded into a single vast settlement
with the establishment of additional communities and congregations by Mennonite
Brethren from the American Midwest (particularly Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas,
and Oklahoma), directly from Russia, or via Manitoba, in 1898-1918.”
Eleven miles west of Rosthern is the
town of Waldheim, another Mennonite enclave.
In the fields near that town is where the Mennonite Brethren built their
first church, the church known in my family as the Brotherfield Church.
The Mennonite Encyclopedia: “Brotherfield
Mennonite Brethren”
“The
Brotherfield Mennonite Brethren congregation near Waldheim, Saskatchewan began
services in 1900, and formally organized in 1901. The first building was occupied in 1902, with
a subsequent building program in 1911. …
“The Brotherfield congregation was one of
the first Mennonite Brethren congregations in Canada. During the years 1897-1899 a number of
families from Minnesota and South Dakota pioneered in the Waldheim area. They met in homes until the formal 1901
organization.”
Cornelius
Willems, my great-grandfather, was the first person buried in the Brotherfield
Church cemetery.
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