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PODCAST

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives

Mennonite Heritage Archives

Explore the history of Mennonites through materials found in the Mennonite Heritage Archives. Using interviews, object, and documents, this podcast will dive into stories inspiring, tragic, strange, and beautiful. As varied as the lives of the people and organizations whose materials are housed in the Mennonite Heritage Archives, this weekly podcast aims to educate and inspire greater interest in Mennonite history.

history

All Episodes

15:00

Tragedy at Vanderhoof

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/04/06

Send us Fan Mail Today, guest host Sara Dyck shares the tragic tale of a group of Mennonites who in 1918, moved from Manitoba to Vanderhoof, British Columbia. They had high hopes of owning land and establishing prosperous farms. For at least one family, their dreams were dashed. Listen to Tragedy at Vanderhoof to find out what happened to these unfortunate souls. Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one! Make a gift here or call 204.560.1998. Find out more by visiting the...

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15:00

David Bergen, novelist

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/03/30

Send us Fan Mail Today, we bring your listeners an interview with nationally acclaimed writer David Bergen about his novel Away from the Dead, a fictional account of victims and their relationships during the historical events that led to the complex and multi-layered conflict of the Ukrainian revolution in the late 1910s. Bergen has written more than a dozen books, many of which feature Mennonite backdrops. He is the recipient of the Scotiabank Giller Prize for his 2005 novel The Time in Bet...

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14:59

The Disappeared Beaver Lodge Mennonite Church

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/03/24

Send us Fan Mail Today, we bring you a story about the Beaverlodge Mennonite Church, a little known congregation that formed in the late 1920s and disappeared from the landscape of Peace River country in northern Alberta some 15-ish years later. Guest Doug Klassen, Executive Minister of the Mennonite Church Canada, shares about his little-known family connection to the church, and we capture his reaction when a surprise visitor shows Doug church records containing names of his ancestors. Your...

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15:00

Elmer Hildebrand (Part 2)

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/03/16

Send a text In part two of this two-part series, Elmer answers questions about his personal interest in Mennonite history, and how he came to move and restore an old house barn that now resides in the village of Neubergthal. Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one! Make a gift here or call 204.560.1998. Find out more by visiting the Mennonite Heritage Archives website - https://www.mharchives.ca/ Follow the Mennonite Heritage Archives on Instagram and Facebook.

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14:59

Elmer Hildebrand (Part 1)

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/03/09

Send a text March 4 marks 69 years since Golden West Radio CEO Elmer Hildebrand first walked through the doors of the brand new CFAM radio station in Altona in 1957. We cover a lot of ground in this 2-part conversation. In Part 1, Elmer shares how Golden West Radio got its start. When he arrived at work for his first day, the building’s construction was still in progress, so he helped lay tiles to finish up the floor. Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one! Make a gift h...

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15:00

Meet historian Dr. Aileen Friesen (Part 2)

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/03/02

Send a text Today, we carry on with our 2-part series featuring historian Dr. Aileen Friesen. In this episode, Aileen shares concerns about the endangered state of historical Mennonite documents in Ukrainian archives as the Russian invasion and war drags on. Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one! Make a gift here or call 204.560.1998. Find out more by visiting the Mennonite Heritage Archives website - https://www.mharchives.ca/ Follow the Mennonite Heritage Archives ...

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14:59

Meet historian Dr. Aileen Friesen (Part 1)

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/02/24

Send a text Today, we bring you part 1 of a 2-part series featuring an interview with Dr. Aileen Friesen. Aileen wears more hats than a Caps R Us store can hold. She is a professor, a published author, a researcher, editor of Preservings magazine, executive director of the D.F. Plett Foundation, and co-chair of the Centre for Transnational Mennonite Studies, to name just a few activities in which she is involved. Still, she found time to talk with us about what drove her to study Mennonite hi...

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14:59

Episode 62: From Russia with Woe (Part 2)

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/02/17

Send a text During Stalin’s Reign of Terror the 1930s, Jacob Petrovich Janzen was one of many Mennonites swept up into forced labour camps called Special Settlements, and then the more severe form of the camps called the Gulag. More than 80 years later, his great-grandaughter, Maria Lotsmanova, discovered parts of his story with help from the Gulag History Museum of Repressions in Moscow. Maria shares with listeners what she has learned about her great-grandfather’s struggle and faith during ...

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14:59

From Russia with Woe (Part 1)

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/02/11

Send a text Today, we bring you ‘From Russia with Woe’, part one of a two part series. During Stalin’s Reign of Terror the 1930s, Jacob Petrovich Janzen was one of many Mennonites swept up into forced labour camps called Special Settlements, and then the more severe form of the camps called the Gulag. More than 80 years later, his great-grandaughter, Maria Lotsmanova, discovered parts of his story with help from the Gulag History Museum of Repressions in Moscow. Maria shares with listeners wh...

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14:59

Trapped in Icy Waters

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/02/03

Send us a text Today, guest host Sara Dyck brings you the chilly tale about a group of Mennonites whose ship became trapped in icy Lake Superior in the spring of 1876. A journey that was meant to take five days turned into a 15 day ordeal. They ran out of food, and almost out of coal to power the steam ship. Their story is pieced together from letters and journals of the travellers who did – eventually – arrive at their southern Manitoba destination. Your donations help preserve and share sto...

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14:59

The Life and Adventures of Jacob Hoemsen (Part 2)

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/01/26

Send us a text Today, we bring you Part 2 of the Life and Adventures of Jacob Hoemsen. In Part 2, we return to the story of Jacob Hoemsen, as he rejects his pacifist upbringing to serve in the controversial Mennonite Self Defence League to protect Mennonite colonists from various paramilitary groups during the War of Ukrainian Independence. Later, a close call with Soviet authorities for whom he worked, clinched his decision to migrate to Canada. Your donations help preserve and share s...

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14:59

The Life and Adventures of Jacob Hoemsen (Part 1)

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/01/19

Send us a text Today, we bring you Part 1 of The Life and Adventures of Jacob Hoemsen. In Part 1, Jacob Hoemsen was raised as a pacifist, pursued education in Germany, and completed his mandatory non-combatant role in the Russian government’s Forestry Service. During WWI, Jacob served as a medic, eventually joining the elite Flying Column at the battlefront. Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one! Make a gift here or call 204.560.1998. Find out more by visit...

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14:59

Anna Thiessen, Nurse and Midwife in Paraguay

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/01/12

Send us a text Today, we bring listeners the story of Manitoba born and raised nurse and midwife, Anna Thiessen. For years, she was the only trained medical practitioner in Colonia Sommerfeld, Paraguay. Anna helped an estimated 1,000 mothers deliver their babies. Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one! Make a gift here or call 204.560.1998. Find out more by visiting the Mennonite Heritage Archives website - https://www.mharchives.ca/ Follow the Mennonite Heritage Arch...

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14:59

REWIND: The Brommtopp

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/01/05

Send us a text In this REWIND episode, host Dan Dyck explores the Mennonite holiday tradition called brommtopp, named for the strange musical instrument used, which can be translated as "rumbling top". This tradition was brought to Imperial Russia from Prussia, and continued in Manitoba into the 1950's. Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one! Make a gift here or call 204.560.1998. Find out more by visiting the Mennonite Heritage Archives website - https://www.mha...

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20:59

First Christmas in Canada, 1926

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2025/12/30

Send us a text Today, we have a nostalgic retelling in English of the story Christmas 1926 by beloved Low German story teller Gerhard Ens. Told through the eyes of 10-year-old Hauns, Gerhard imagines a fictional account of what it might have been like for Mennonite refugees from the Soviet Union to celebrate their first Christmas in Canada. We are grateful for the extra time Golden West has granted this episode, which clocks in at 21 minutes. Thank you! Your donations help preserve and share ...

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14:59

Festive Foods and Folkways from the Mennonite Tradition

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2025/12/22

Send us a text In this episode, we bring you an episode with the excessively alliterative of Festive Foods and Folkways from the Mennonite Tradition. This instalment is based on a two-volume book series by Norma Jost Voth. She interviewed about 60 elder women who brought their Christmas traditions and celebrations from Russia to North America. Tune in to hear about Norma’s work, and listen to show host Dan Dyck mangle the pronunciation of German and Dutch words like Niejoasch’owend and Oilie ...

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14:59

Patrick Friesen, Menno Colony, Paraguay

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2025/12/16

Send us a text In this episode, we’re delighted to bring you an interview with Patrick Friesen, a third generation Mennonite from Paraguay. His great-grandfather, C.F. Friesen, was one of the early leaders and teachers in Paraguay. Patrick shares about the historical migration from Manitoba, paints a picture of the Menno Colony today — and issues an invitation in English and Low German to visit his community for its 100th anniversary in 2027. Your donations help preserve and share stories lik...

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14:59

The Cast-off Child

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2025/12/08

Send us a text Today, we bring you a story that’s about as close to a Whodunnit Mystery as Mennonite history gets. It’s a story about a baby, a pig pen, and ongoing attempts to get rid of the child — even as he grows up. To learn more, tune in to Episode 53 of Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives. Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one! Make a gift here or call 204.560.1998. Find out more by visiting the Mennonite Heritage Archives website - https://www.mharchives...

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14:59

A Short History of House Barns with Roland Sawatsky

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2025/12/01

Send us a text After a few consecutive episodes that leaned into some darker stories in Mennonite history, we’re pleased to bring you something on the lighter side. To air on Sunday, Nov. 30 we bring you… (drumroll )… A Short History of House Barns! Join me and Roland Sawatsky, curator at the Manitoba Museum and past curator at the Mennonite Village Museum in Steinbach, as we reveal that a house barn is (!SPOILER ALERT!) “a barn connected to a house,” how far back we can trace the histo...

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14:59

Who Was Nestor Makhno? (Part 3)

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2025/11/24

Send us a text Today, we bring you Part 3, the final instalment of our series on Nestor Makhno, a Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary leader during the civil uprisings of the late 1910s. In Part 3, Sean Patterson brings us insights into the role that wealth and ethnicity played in the movement named for Makhno, and draw some conclusions about what Mennonites today can and should take away from this story. Series synopsis: In Part 1 (Nov. 8), we take a deep dive into the life of Nestor Makhno’s ...

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75 results

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