The 'real Steinbach' isn't as Mennonite as it once was. How the city is surprising people

Andrew Unger remembers crossing paths with someone in Winnipeg who figured his trip from Steinbach to the big city must have been a vacation, rather than a quick and simple day trip.

"Maybe that's sort of symbolic of how people feel about Steinbach in general, or their knowledge of it," said Unger, who writes satire poking fun at Mennonite life at his website the Unger Review (formerly known as the Daily Bonnet).

"They think that not only is it geographically quite far away, but that it's far away in a lot of other ways."

The city of 18,000 people — which is actually only about 50 kilometres southeast of Winnipeg — is still perceived by many Manitobans as overwhelmingly Mennonite and socially conservative.

A belief lingers that Steinbach's views are out-of-step with an increasingly secular society that sometimes treats Manitoba's third-largest city as an oddity when some subjects — from mandatory vaccinations to gay rights — bubble up in the news. 

The pandemic didn't help. Steinbach struggled with a relatively low vaccination rate compared to many other parts of Manitoba, and anti-restriction protests in the southeastern Manitoba city seemed to validate assumptions it was a haven for those ideas, Unger said.

"The exact same rallies took place in Winnipeg, and when that happens very few people are saying, 'Well, that represents the community,'" he said.

"Believe it or not, there's individual people in Steinbach that are very progressive or want to see changes in Steinbach and are working hard toward those things," said Unger.

"The community as a whole probably changes slower than other places, but it is still changing. That's undeniable."

Steinbach Mayor Earl Funk prefers to focus on reflecting that change, rather than getting too worked up about what others say of his city.

"I continue to work to get the story out. I do what I can to portray the Steinbach I know, and the changes I've seen."

He notes that at the very same time one anti-mask rally was going on in the city, volunteers in Steinbach were out rallying in another way: collecting donations for health-care workers overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients. More than $7,000 in gift cards was handed out.

"That was the real Steinbach," Funk said, "and that came through loud and clear with the donations that were given."

Built by Mennonites who came to Canada more than a century ago in search of religious freedom, Steinbach is rooted in and influenced by faith. That's evidenced by the city's high number of churches (22, which works out to one place of worship for every 820 people or so) and a data analysis that shows Steinbach residents give more of their income to charity than anywhere else in Canada.