Leaving Russia

From the back cover: In Leaving Russia: The Journey to Canada, you will read stories and other information about a group of new settlers in Canada.  This group arrived in Manitoba, Canada, in the 1870s.  They were called Mennonites, and they came from Russia.  After a long voyage across the Atlantic Ocean, as well as more trips by boat along several rivers, they arrived in North Dakota, United States.  From there – as one storyteller remembers – they travelled, ever so slowly, by wagon train, pulled by oxen.

The oxen took them to Fort Dufferin, Manitoba.  Here the Mennonites got a big, warm welcome from Canada’s government.  Why?  Because they were experienced farmers.  They knew how to grow oats, rye, barley and other crops of wide-open Prairie land.  They were exactly what the government of Canada was looking for.  As for the Mennonites, they had found just the right land for themselves.  But this was just the beginning of the story …