Review of Storied Landscapes: Ethno-Religious Identity and the Canadian Prairies. By Frances Swyripa

Authors

Hans Werner, University of WinnipegFollow

Date of this Version

Spring 2012

Citation

Great Plains Research 22.1 (Spring 2012)

Comments

© 2012 Copyright by the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Abstract

Frances Swyripa's study of the ethno-religious landscape of the Canadian prairies is a delightful painting of the visual legacy ofthe settlement landscape and at the same time a careful analysis of the nuances that undergirded the religious sensibilities of the particular groups she examines. Storied Landscapes pays most attention to Mennonites, Ukrainians, Doukhobors, and Icelanders, and less to other Scandinavians, other Europeans, and Mormons. Three single location settlements in Saskatchewan are also represented: the Esterhazy-Kaposvar Hungarian settlement, the English Barr Colony near Lloydminster, and the German St. Peter's Colony at Muenster.

Storied Landscapes is a welcome and novel way of looking at ethno-religious settlement on the Canadian prairies. Its comparative approach helps to lay bare the multiplicity of meanings the land came to have as religious and ethnic space.