gammatracy: Our Beautiful Canadian "German" Town

Welcome To Stony Brook

The towns Dutch replica windmill

Early history

Steinbach (meaning "Stony Brook" in German) was founded in 1874 by German-speaking Mennonite settlers from Russia. The Mennonite Heritage Village museum, located in the city, provides a glimpse at the life of these settlers through a reconstructed village and interpretive displays. Its Dutch windmill, which was rebuilt (with help from Dutch millwrights,my daughters husband J. and her father in-law, were part of this re-construction) after the 1972 replica was destroyed by arson in 2001, is a recognized symbol of the city.

A tour of the little town (City)

I just love how this town looks, there are flowers every were, all towns folk have such pride in their community...and it shows!!!

There is a clock tower in the center of the town, that has an old world charm about it.

It's construction is that of what I saw when I visited England and Wales...This tower is meant to last!

I feel like I am back in the UK when I come here

Close to the clock we stopped for lunch, the patio even had wrought iron chairs and table...just as I would have seen in the UK. It was a bit chilly out side, so we ate in...

That's how one can tell you are in Canada!!!

We had two huge cups of European coffee, and beef and cheese pinnies. Mr.B is not impressed that he has to wait until I take the picture to eat :)))

We stopped our little European car by this beautiful park that I discovered...I just had to get some shots!

The front path leads to this cedar constructed gazebo...those trees strangely look like...

Palm trees??? Here??? In the middle of Canada???

I definitely will be keeping my eyes on these tree's, to see if they come through our cold winters of -40.

Its hard for me to believe it will get that cold ...but it will!!!

Every were we drive in this small city there are flowers down all major streets...can you see them lined up on the road? Every building down town has flowers, people's yards are full of bright colorful petals...

its breath taking!!!

Flowers every were are just another thing this town has in common with Europe

There are so many flowers that we had a visit from this Humming Bird Moth. He was too fast for me to take a shot of so I got this picture from the net...It was as big as some Hummingbirds and he sounded like one too!

I think our library is pretty impressive, not only is it lovely to look at from the out side but, the inside is filled with all kinds of books...tons of them in German too.

Close to the library is a small park, one could take their reading treasures and meander over, and read amongst the flowers.

In the center of the park is a huge Red Wood .... that was cut down with an old fashioned blade that is mounted in the center of this tree.

A description how this town came to be is mounted on another plaque in the same park...cool, I didn't know this stuff!!!

I too, was born into a low German heritage. My family is of Low German descent from Prussia. All though my family does not practice the Mennonite religion, but the tight knit German tie's are still there.

(Above)We ended our day with supper at MJ's one of my favorite places...we had porgies with white sauce (a German sauce instead of our traditional Canadian sour cream) with summer sausage, and a butter tar for dessert.Yummy!!!