Join The Winkler Heritage Society Today

This is your invitation to join the Winkler Heritage Society, a registered, non-profit organization. Visible in the community because of its dedication to the preservation of history, the WHS offers you this opportunity to discover your roots, learn more about your ancestors and pass on a legacy to your children and grandchildren.

As a WHS member, you receive the society's quarterly newsletter Heritage Happenings, and other WHS historical materials. Membership is on an annual, calendar-year basis - entitling you to vote at the Annual General Meeting. The WHS fiscal year runs January 1 - December 31st.

One of the Society's major projects has been the Road of Remembrance, which currently includes three monuments. One commemorates Mennonite pioneer settlers who began arriving in the Winkler area in 1876, and is found in Prairie Green Park on Prairieview Drive. Two more cairns, commemorating Winkler’s Jewish pioneers and the city’s pioneers of Germanic descent found their home on the green space which has been designated Bethel Heritage Park. Other cairns, including the Veterans’ cairn and a cairn honouring Winkler and area young men who chose to become Conscientious Objectors during the Second World War will also be placed in the park as development is carried forward.

The WHS dream to establish a Heritage Park adjacent to the Winkler Centennial Library, on the site of the former Bethel Hospital, received assent from Winkler City Council in 2007. The $1.2 million project is a joint venture with the City of Winkler and the citizens of Winkler, and will celebrate the heritage of the founding peoples of the community in various ways. The Grand Opening of the Bethel Heritage Park is being planned for the fall of 2010.

The Winkler Heritage Society opened their archives in the Winkler Centennial Library in 2007, as well. Archive committee members are busy cataloguing archive material which has been donated to the Society by residents and former residents of Winkler.

ROLE AND MISSION of the Winkler Archives
The Archives serves the entire population of Winkler & District by protecting information and archival media of fundamental significance in establishing, maintaining, and developing community identities.

We accept:

• Items pertaining to the history of Winkler & district
• Items that are unique to our Archives mandate.
• Paper items, documents, journals, correspondence, certificates, wills, records, pertaining to Winkler)
• Pictures (photos and/or paintings, pertaining to Winkler) slides, negatives
• Maps (no old school maps; they could be found somewhere else)
• Books (no text books, except maybe for exhibit)
• History magazines (having to do with Winkler & district)
• Year books (City of Winkler, people who lived in Winkler & district, school districts)

HOURS: Wednesdays 3:00 -5:00 p.m.
or by appointment contact
Grace @ 325-7401
Ed @ 325-8929
Marj @ 325- 8644

Membership in the Winkler Heritage Society is open to all - individuals, organizations and businesses - interested in promoting local history, preserving the past and dreaming for the future. Each membership carries one vote.

Annual, Calendar-Year Membership Fees are $20.00 each (price subject to change).

Please click here to download our membership application form.