For the past century and a half, generations of Friesens, Penners, Reimers, Klassens, Hildebrands, Wiebes, Giesbrechts, and Neufelds (to name a few) have called this area home. It's no secret that Mennonites have left an indelible mark on Southern Manitoba with their agricultural prowess and a culture that strives to place humility at its core.
A historical journey
To commemorate the 150th Anniversary of Mennonite migration from Imperial Russia to Manitoba, Filmmaker Dale Hildebrand has created a special labour-intensive project — a documentary titled Where the Cottonwoods Grow that details the arrival of the region’s largest ethnoreligious group.
“Going into this, I had no idea of . . . the depth of history that is involved in this journey that took place,” says Hildebrand. “[The film is] really trying to show a sweeping journey, an epic feel. We also tried to do . . . a meat and potatoes type of documentary where we show the history [and] the emotional aspect of it as well.”
The documentary will touch on subjects ranging from the Mennonites’ first landing in Manitoba at the junction of Rat River and Red River in 1874, their landing in the following year at Fort Dufferin, and how Mennonites survived through their first frigid winter in the region.
“We wanted to specifically focus on the journey itself, but we also thought we have an audience that goes beyond our immediate Mennonite audience," says Hildebrand. “We tried to encompass all of that.”
Blending history with modern technology
The vision for the style of the documentary aligns with that of Ken Burns.
“I've never done one that way before,” says Hildebrand. “Usually, you shoot and shoot and shoot something and then you [shape] it in post-production, whereas with this style, you sort of write it first, then you shoot it, and then you still find [the story] in post-production.”
For Hildebrand, the information-collecting stage of the documentary was an enriching process.
“The journey into the research of this was phenomenal. We reached out all over the world. We have . . . elements in this film from . . . Mennonite archives in Manitoba, but we also reached out to archives all over the world,” he says. “The historians that came on board are brilliant, they're funny, they're fun, they're lively, and they also showed a personal connection that is quite heartwarming.”
Hildebrand says that community participation over the course of the project was “absolutely paramount.” He notes that many of the elements of the story came from community members.
“[Mennonites started] from Switzerland going to Netherlands to Poland which became Prussia, Prussia to the Ukraine, [from] Ukraine crossing the Atlantic — actually taking the train. It was a 20,000-kilometre journey that they took. We followed the train rides through fleeing Imperial Russia, going through Europe, landing in Hamburg, taking the ship across to England, going over to Liverpool, Liverpool across to Nova Scotia, down the St. Lawrence, then to Ontario up to Collingwood, Collingwood through the Great Lakes to Duluth, from Duluth to the Red River [on a train], and up the Red River by steamboat.” -Dale Hildebrand
The project seeks to share the arduous journey of the Mennonites with the help of modern technology.
“We used CGI to create several worlds. We [created] one world going across the grasslands, which we could use in Imperial Russia, we could use it in the United States in the Midwest, [and] we could use it in Manitoba,” he says. “We also created the ship [that went] across the ocean. We got the original blueprints of the first ship that the Mennonites came across in, and we designed the ship around that. Then as it's coming across the ocean at one point, it's surrounded by icebergs, just like the Titanic.”
The third world created was the fateful location of the Mennonites’ arrival, the Red River.
“I shot drone footage going down the Red River, and we built a steamship and paddle wheel going down [it]. We composited it all into footage [that] looks quite spectacular,” he says, adding that marrying historical facts with modern technology is an interesting way to approach storytelling.
Stitching a tale
In the documentary, the immersive CGI visuals are also enhanced by journal entries that detail the sometimes harrowing journey of the Mennonites.
“A lot of the journals . . . were written by men or young boys,” says Hildebrand. “After the wonderful film Women Talking, I didn't want to turn this film into [only men’s voices], . . . so what we did is we began the film [with] a woman walking across the snowy, barren Manitoba landscape, passing leafless cottonwoods.”
Hildebrand says that the cottonwoods in the film are the ones he grew up with on his farm in Halbstadt, Manitoba. He wanted to commemorate them, too. The filmmaker says that they also serve to symbolize Mennonite migration as a whole.
“The villages that were made [were] transplanted, and [when The Mennonites] came here, they made rows of trees to mark their villages," he says.
Once the woman in the film walks past the cottonwoods in the cold, she arrives at a house barn, another powerful image associated with Mennonites.
“As she enters the house portion of the house barn, she opens the door. There's a gathering of women there to make a quilt,” says Hildebrand. “This is 50 years after the original migration, and she's reading journals, so throughout the film, [as] the women are quilting, she's reading these old stories. Each patch that they make is symbolic of the chapter that we are entering . . . . By the end of the film, we've made a quilt and we've told the story.”
The complex issue of colonialism
One unavoidable angle of the subject matter of Where the Cottonwoods Grow is the colonial aspect of the migration. While the narrative used to be that Manitoba was “empty" when the Mennonites arrived, this view has since been corrected. For Hildebrand, the project put this difficult topic into perspective.
“The whole idea of colonization is something that's sort of eluded me, in a sense . . . . We came here looking for a piece of freedom and a place to practice religion or whatever it might have been for those people, and specifically, the people that came to the north [in Manitoba] as opposed to going to Kansas, . . . but that was the same with the people that were all on this land originally,” he says, noting that rather than making moralistic statements in the documentary, his intention was to emphasize the human struggle on both sides of the equation.
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“We were all human beings trying to survive in a time of a lot of turmoil,” he says. “In the 1870s, . . . the American Government couldn't pay for the railroads [it was building], so what it did is it paid the railroad builders in land, and how can they make money off this land? Well, they're going to bring in immigrants from Europe to settle [it.] This is an idea that affects a lot of people.”
Hildebrand says that another factor was the Government of Canada’s desire to “establish” its territory for its own sake to keep it from the American Government.
“[Canada] also wanted farmers [to] farm the land,” he says. “People originally from Holland [and Poland] knew how to drain the lands, and that's why they came into Manitoba.”
Representing harsh realities
For Hildebrand, the medium of film is the perfect avenue to capture some of the nuances of the Mennonites. One such trait is the orality of their culture (which is illustrated by the fact that the group does not have a universally agreed upon written language). In film, the voices that define a people can be heard.
The filmmaker hopes that the visuals alongside this mode of storytelling will be impactful and create empathy and understanding for a group that took extreme risk and experienced deep losses for a chance at a new life.
“In showing some of these visual aspects and recreating some [things] in CGI, we're hopefully able to get . . . an emotional connection and an idea of, ‘wow, that must have been hard — that must have been difficult,'” says Hildebrand.
According to Hildebrand, when Mennonites decided to set out for Manitoba, many of them had never seen a train or a steamboat before. The group went from a tight-knit community that didn’t venture too far to making a 20,000-kilometre journey. Not everyone survived the trip.
“A lot of children died on the journey coming across,” says Hildebrand. “In Fort Dufferin alone, I think 30 or 60 children died in that month they were there.”
Hildebrand says that throughout the journey, many community members had to be left behind due to illness as well. He says that this was especially the case in Liverpool, where the environmental by-products of the Industrial Revolution took their toll on the vulnerable.
A broad audience
With its sober exploration of history and humanity, Hildebrand says Where the Cottonwoods Grow has something to offer both Mennonites and non-Mennonites young and old.
“I wanted to speak to all people,” he says. “We are not mincing words. We're trying to show the reality of what happened then . . . . I think the journey that they took can show us a sense of appreciation, a sense of understanding of our due diligence, our ability . . . . It's problem solving. I always say that it’s the same as filmmaking. He or she who solves the most problems wins.”
Hildebrand relates filmmaking to his Mennonite ancestry in other ways, too.
“I’ve always told my dad filmmaking is like farming,” he says. “You plant a seed, and you hope something comes to fruition.”
From October 4–6, there will be screenings of Where the Cottonwoods Grow in the region. Friday’s screening is at the University of Winnipeg, The Krahn Barn in Neubergthal will host Saturday’s show (Sold Out), and on Sunday, there will be a viewing at the Commons Barn in Neubergthal (Sold Out). Due to popular demand, a second screening has been added for Sunday, October 6th at 4:30pm at the Commons Barn in Neubergthal
If you are interested in attending the second screening on Sunday, you can reserve tickets by emailing mkrahnweb@gmail.com to make arrangements.
With files from Ty Hildebrand