Between 1923 and 1930, 20,000 Mennonites managed to leave the newly formed Soviet Union and emigrate to Canada. Among them were Heinrich and Helena Kroeger and their five children. The Kroegers experienced war in 1914, and then revolution, civil war, a typus epidemic and hyper-inflation that destroyed people’s savings. In 1926 they left their homeland and came to Canada, where they settled in an arid part of Alberta. Based on Heinrich’s Kroeger’s diaries, notebooks and letters, this book is a social history that speaks to the indomitable spirit of Mennonite immigrant to the Canadian West. The author Authur Kroeger had a 34 year career in the federal public service, including 17 as a Deputy Minister of several departments. He studied at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. After leaving government, he taught at several universities and served for ten years as Chancellor of Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.