In September 1939, just a few months after the formation of the Markham-Waterloo Conference, the world was thrown into another global cataclysm when Germany invaded Poland. By June 1940, western Europe had pretty much fallen to the Germans, with Britain and her allies left alone to fight. Even before the declaration of war, the Russian Mennonites in western Canada had begun to worry about the status of the Peace Churches (Mennonite, Amish, Brethren in Christ, and Quakers) with respect to military service. Mennonites from across the country held conferences to discuss their options.
From the beginning, there was some division between those who refused any service related to war and those who accepted alternative forms of service, even including medical and ambulances service at the front lines. After sending delegates and numerous petitions to Ottawa, members of the Peace Churches, as registered conscientious objectors (COs), were given the option of accepting forms of Alternative Service in lieu of being drafted into the military.
In 1941, the government set up Alternative Service work camps where COs would live and work in national parks or on highway construction. A number of young men from Waterloo County served at the Montreal River camp north of Sault Ste Marie, where they worked on extending the highway north towards Wawa. Some others worked at camps in the west, including on Vancouver Island, where they fought forest fires. These camps were actually run by members of the Peace Churches, rather than by the military.
Later in the war, as labour shortages set in across the economy, COs were allowed to work on farms and in food-industry factories for a limited wage, under a new Alternative Service program called Selective Service. Under this plan, each worker received $25 per month, and the remainder of his wages were donated to the Red Cross. After this form of service was introduced in 1943, most COs chose this option. Approximately $2,250,000 was donated to the Red Cross before the program was discontinued in 1946.
Across Canada, 10,872 Conscientious Objectors served in Alternative Service during the War, 2,636 of them from Ontario. My uncle Osiah worked on a dairy farm near Galt for a year and a half. My mother’s uncle Henry Martin was sent to British Columbia for Selective Service work, and his brother, my parents’ friend David Martin from Hawkesville Gospel Hall, spent 4 months in 1941 at the Montreal River camp, then the rest of the war working on farms in Waterloo County. My uncle David Bauman also worked at the Montreal River camp, during the winter of 1942-43.
On the other hand, about 4,500 men from Mennonite families across Canada, including my dad’s brother Isaiah (Marty), volunteered to serve in the armed forces. At least four members of St Jacobs Mennonite church and two Dave Martin Mennonites were excommunicated for joining up and thus denying the non-resistance principles of the church.
Sources:
Martin, Donald. Old Order Mennonites of Ontario: Gelassenheit, Discipleship, Brotherhood. Kitchener: Pandora Press, 2003.
Darrell Frey. Called to be a Soldier. Wallenstein: Vineyard Publications, 2014.
500 Years of Migration 
My father, David Bauman also served at the Montreal River Camp. According to Darrel Frey’s book, “Called to be a Soldier, Experiences of CO’s at Alternative Camps During WWII,”, it was Winter of 1942-1943.
I remember as a child our family came to visit you at Sault Ste Marie. Both families crammed into one car and went to visit the site of Montreal River Camp. I don’t remember much about the camp, but I remember the trip there.
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Somehow, I’d forgotten that your father served there, although I remember that trip up the highway. I think we did the same trip when the David Martins visited. I and a friend of mine from the Sault talked at one time about doing some writing about the Montreal River Camp, but by then all of the people who’d served there who I knew had passed away. Thanks for the reminder about your dad and the memory.
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