Friendly and Natural Manitoba: January 2010

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Mennonite Heritage Village, Steinbach

Me and my family started our summer tour 2009 with Mennonite Heritage Village at Steinbach, Manitoba. Steinbach is about 50 km southeast of Winnipeg. About 13,000 people live in the city. But according to wikipedia it is the fastest growing city in Manitoba. The city was stablished by mennonite settlers from Russia. The windmill in the Mennonite Heritage village is considered as the symbol of the city.

Mennonite Heritage village is a 40 acres site which resembles the older mennonite village established in early 19th century in Southern Manitoba.

At beginning of each summer they celebrates spring on the farm along witha a tractor show. That was my first any kind of vehicle show in Canada. I really enjoyed all the old tractors. I'll give another post with the tractor show. In this post I'll focus on the Heritage village only.

The admission fee was CAD$10 for adult. It seembed very reasonable to me.

Leaving the entrance and the main building you will see a general store and other business oriented buildings

The first one is the main building and second one is the main street.

Semlin is a temporary house bulit by the early Mennonite to save themselves from the brutal winter of Manitoba. They didn't get enough time to build wooden home. Half of the structure is laid beneath the earth to keep it less exposed to cold wind.

Now photos of some of the vehicles and farming equipments are presented here:

Photo: Very very old Tracto, still working. They were using it for grinding crops

Photo: Crop husking Demonstration

Photo: Few of the farming equipments

Photo: Vehicle 1923 Model

Photo: Old Fire Vehicle

Photo: Classic Car

Photo: Snow Carts..

Photo: Old Funeral Wagon

http://www.mennoniteheritagevillage.com/

Tulip Festival

Photo1: Tulip

I came to Winnipeg, Canada in August, 2007. I was always looking for different festivals, events in Winnipeg as well as in Manitoba. I saw beautiful photos of Tulip Festivals in Ottawa (Canada), Sydney (Australia), New York (USA). I was wondering whether there was any such festival in Winnipeg or in Manitoba. And I found one in Assinboine Park, Winnipeg. It was inside the city so very easily accessible. It is the first Tulip Festival I've attended.

It was the first Tulip Festival in Winnipeg as well as in Manitoba. Winnipeg is the coldest city in the world where more than 600,000 people live. So the harsh weather is a big obstacle for growing Tulip. In 2008, Dutch Community of Winnipeg donated 10,000 tulips to Leo Mol Sculpture garden in Assinboine Park which leads to the first ever Tulip Festival in Manitoba in the end of May, 2009.

Leo Mol sculpture garden is a small part of Assinboine park. There are lots of sculptures here. There is a building which preserves lots of sculptures related to Manitoban and Canadian culture.

You can see more photos in my web album : Picasa Web Albums - Shahnoor Habib Munmun - Tulip Garden