Canada is home to approximately 5,000 Amish, and is the only Amish location outside the US. Ontario is the only province in Canada where Amish live.
Amish visitors to Niagara Falls
Amish have a long history in Canada, with the oldest settlement at Milverton dating to the 1820s. If you’ve ever read the Amish periodical Family Life, you should know Aylmer, the home of Pathway Publishers, who put out Family Life and a number of other publications.
You can read more in the Canada Amish guide, just completed. With Canada our last “state guide” entry–the Amish State Guide resource is now finished (well, that said there could be one more state to add on the horizon…).
Photo credit: bilboartz
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15 responses to Amish in Canada
The St. Jacobs area of Ontario is also home to a large population of Old Order Mennonites, and there are other Old Order groups of Mennonites in Canada. Ontario has excellent farm land, and the southern regions are temperate, similar in climate to Pennsylvania. The land there is now too expensive, I suppose, to be of much use to new farmers.
In the last few years some Old Order Mennonites have moved from Ontario to the Gladstone area in Manitoba.
Pathway Publications
I get all 3 Pathway Publications and am particularly fond of “Family Life” but enjoy them all and have learned a lot about the Amish from reading them. I also have learned a lot from this web site and am grateful to you, Erik, for having it.
I appreciate that Joan, and thanks for visiting it! I much recommend Pathway’s publications. Good reading even if you’re not Amish.
Thank you for writing this, Erik. I appreciate it. I like the state guide for Canada/Ontario, but I won’t nitpick about the state thing, no James Madison jokes on my part….
I have been to Aylmer, lovely spot. I think I saw the property that Pathway is published from when I was in the area a decade or so ago. There was a hand painted sign that read “Pathway” and as I recall not much more, it lead into a farm.
Amish in Canada
State and Province Guide
Shom I would love to call it the “State and Province Guide” but brevity and a 28(29?)-1 ratio demand otherwise
If the Amish get expansive in Canada and decide to settle two or three more provinces then we may have to change the name
Thanks though and glad you enjoyed it!
A new state? Where?
Mark; I can tell you its not Upper or Lower Canada.
A new state…hmmm maybe a contest to guess which one it is? I would take a stab Oregon.
I visited Elmira last spring, nice community but unfortunately I was there on a Sunday, so all the OOM businesses were closed.
Thanks for the post
I’ve been aware of the Mennonite communities north of K-W forever, but wasn’t aware of the Amish settlement in the Milverton area. I love traveling through that part of the province. Hope to make some Amish contacts in the future.
My pleasure Paul, thanks!
There are also Mennonite farmers near Massey (west of Sudbury), though I wonder how the farming is up there because there is a lot of rock, and even the wild vegetation looks noticeably sparser. The farmland in southern Ontario is definitely more productive.
The photo for this post reminded me…
A couple years ago we went on a family vacation to Canada. The day we began our trip home we stopped on the American side of Niagara Falls and had lunch. As we left the restaurant and were crossing the street I heard my husband saying, “Look! Look!” and there was a whole group of Amish young people sitting on benches and milling around (my husband does not have the interest in the Amish like I do, but he doesn’t want me to miss a thing!).
When we got back home I started doing some research into Amish in New York state (found out there are settlements fairly close-by (2-2 1/2 hrs.) in eastern New York. I also found out that we were a stone’s throw from a settlement in Ontario while we were in Canada. You know what they say about hind sight…
Anyway, during that research a very cool thing happened…I found Amish America,
Amish in Canada
Actually, there is another Amish settlement in Canada. A few years ago a group from Ontario moved to Manitoba. I was born and raised in Manitoba and before I moved away, the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) published an article on it. The settlement is close to Galdstone, MB. You can read it online here: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/story/2006/09/06/mba-amish.html
My question is how are they managing with the prairie weather… Perphaps Ordnug rules on dress would have to change in some cases I imagine so that frostbite would not be too big a problem. Southern Ontario can get cold, but I know from experience that Southern Manitoba is one of the coldest places to live on earth.
Amish in Canada
No Amish in Manitoba
Anisa I had a look at the article–it’s interesting, though it’s also over 5 years old and there doesn’t seem to be much else out there on Amish living in Manitoba.
I had not heard of this group’s story, though a couple things are possible: in some cases what have been termed “para-Amish” or more coloquially “out-of-order Amish” set up communities in some ways similar to Amish but not accepted as officially Amish by other communities, or what is probably more likely here, it could be another plain groups such as a Mennonite group mistaken for Amish.
I found some evidence at GAMEO (and elsewhere online) indicating that the latter possibility might be the case: “During the 1990s members of the Canadian Orthodox Mennonite communities began to move into the Algoma Region of northern Ontario, and in 2006 a group leaving their fellowship moved to Gladstone, Manitoba, Canada.” http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/orthodox_mennonite_church
Also, David Luthy, an Ontario Amishman who compiles a comprehensive list of Amish settlements every five years, did not include anyone from Manitoba in 2008, and if anyone would know, he would. The previous year’s Amish Almanac (2007) also does not list any group from Manitoba.
You present an interesting question though, as to how an Amish group would do in those conditions. Seems like you’d need a pretty good heater in the buggy.
Amish in Canada
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