Mennonite Heritage Village Prepares For Pioneer Days

Preparations for Pioneer Days in Steinbach are in high gear. Barry Dyck, Executive Director at Mennonite Heritage Village, says they are busy with things like volunteer recruitment and making sure the grounds are in top shape. He notes this year's event will have a few different twists in keeping with 60th anniversary celebrations at MHV.

"We've asked some of the bands to focus specifically on 60's music, going back to  our incorporation date of 1964. The stage will likely tend to feature 60's music. And, in trying to go back to that era, we'll be making ice cream floats in the short order booth and we'll be selling cotton candy in the Village Centre."

Dyck says they will also bring back a popular family history centre where people can trace their Mennonite roots.

"We've started making a family history centre available to our guests on festival days in particular. This is really kind of a genealogy lab where we have three or four people come in and set up their computers with the Grandma program. The Grandma program is a data base of over one million Mennonite names. The fellas who are staffing these computers are particularly good at this and they can go back, typically, a couple of centuries as a rule."

Pioneer Days runs Friday through Monday at the museum.