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Elmira is the home
of the largest one-day maple
syrup festival in the world.
Each spring, thousands of visitors
devour stacks of pancakes covered
in fresh Waterloo County maple
syrup.
Shoo-Fly Pie and Handstitched
Quilts
The rural lifestyle of the Amish
and Mennonite cultures has given
Waterloo County a distinctly
country flavour. Old-fashioned,
homespun charm dominates the
regionçs shops, galleries, inns
and restaurants
St. Jacob's, originally
called Jacobstettel or "the
town of many Jacobs", combines
Mennonite history and culture
with craft and art studios,
shops and restaurants.
The Kitchener-Waterloo Farmerçs
Market has offered up the
bounty of local harvests and
the talent of local artisans
and hand-crafters for 130 years.
The market attracts over 20,000
visitors each week.
The Waterloo County Quilt
Festival is the largest
quilt festival in North America,
running each year in mid-May
and featuring exhibits, sales
and juried shows.
Joseph Schneider Haus
in Kitchener features the Georgian
frame house of Joseph Schneider,
the areaçs first Pennsylvania-
German Mennonite pioneer. The
1816 homestead has been restored
and furnished to its original
period.
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Bonnets and Buggies
The Mennonites of
Waterloo County
First-time visitors to Waterloo County,
in the heart of the Grand River Valley,
are often surprised to encounter farm families
that seem to dwell in another era.
In the midst of twenty-first century Ontario,
the Old Order Mennonites of Waterloo County
still travel by horse and buggy. They dress
in plain, old- fashioned clothing, and farm
their land with the simple, non-mechanized
tools of pioneer days. As descendants of
a religious sect that originated in 16th
century Switzerland, they support age-old
beliefs in non-violence and separation of
church and state.
Although
they represent only a small portion of the
areaçs Mennonite populationú just one of
15 branches of Mennonite faith in the Valley
the Old Order's austere habits have shaped
the popular image of Waterloo County culture.
North
From Pennsylvania:
The Trail of the Black Walnut Mennonites
first arrived in the Grand River Valley
in the early 1800çs. Fleeing the American
Revolution, escalating land prices and religious
persecution, they followed the Trail of
the Black Walnut north to the affordable,
fertile farmland of Upper Canada. With an
initial purchase of 24,000 hectares known
as the German County Tract, they settled
throughout the Waterloo County region, and
founded towns such as Elmira, St. Jacobçs
and the city of Waterloo.
In the mid-1820's, members of the Amish
sect, a Mennonite sub-group, immigrated
directly from Europe, and settled in the
Nith River, Wilmot and Milverton townships.
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