The large fiftieth anniversary signs at each end of Niverville’s Main Street have confused more than a few locals since they first appeared a few weeks back. Perhaps these people are asking themselves, “Hasn’t Niverville been on the map since the early 1870s?” The answer, of course, would be yes. And if we were celebrating Niverville’s complete history, we’d be looking back at nearly 150 years of growth and progress.
So what anniversary is Niverville marking this year? 2019 represents the fiftieth year since arguably Niverville’s most significant milestone: the village’s separation from the RM of Hanover and its incorporation as an independent local government.
On January 6, 1969, five local visionaries stood before a provincial delegate for the swearing in of Niverville’s first self-governing council.
That same day, Niverville’s first mayor, William Kuzenko, received the charter for the newly incorporated village. This meant that the 660 people in Niverville would no longer be reliant on the governance of the municipality just east of its borders.
At 22 years of age, Fred Bergmann was one of those early visionaries. He is the only member of the original council still alive today. Mayor Kuzenko and counsellors Alvin Podjan, David Stoesz, and Wally Pauls have all since passed, but they’ve left their mark.
“We were on council not for the money,” says Bergmann. “We were on council to promote Niverville. And we all did that. We all shared that vision. We wanted Niverville to grow, and by doing that we had an influx of all kinds of people.”
Journey to Incorporation
The movement towards Niverville’s incorporation began long before 1969. Situated at the far northwestern edge of the Hanover municipality, Bergmann recalls a sense of disgruntlement that had pervaded the community due to the lack of return they were seeing for their tax dollars. Snow-clearing and weed control, he says, were slow at best. Requests for improved infrastructure such as street lighting and sewer repairs were turned down.
Clarence Braun, a lifelong Niverville resident and former mayor (1995–2002), has always had a fascination for local politics. This was partly instilled by his father, who was involved on many of the community’s boards.
Braun recalls attending a political debate at the Niverville School in 1962, at just seven years of age. One of the political hopefuls, he says, told the gathered crowd that communities need people who care enough about their town to get involved and think about the future. Those words resonated with him and others that day. They may well have been the impetus for the move toward political independence.
“The issue of great discontent here [based on] what we were getting. That was the driver [for change] right there,” Braun says of the mood in the late 1960s. “There was a strong feeling that we were getting the short end of the stick.”
He says that Niverville was a rather unique community in Hanover. Like Kleefeld, Blumenort, and Grunthal, the Mennonite roots ran deep. But a strong English and Scottish influence had also been present in Niverville from its beginning, demonstrated through the presence of a United Church, a dance hall, and prominent families such as the Wallaces, the Stotts, and the Churches.
“We would have been considered a bit of a different community than the other ones,” Braun says.
He adds that, in the 1960s, the provincial government didn’t assume as much responsibility for snow-clearing rural highways as they do now. It would have been left up to the municipalities. Hanover’s maintenance shop was located in Kleefeld, a location more central to other communities in the RM than to Niverville.
As well, the municipality appointed a representative to each community whose job was to assess the needs of his area and make recommendations to Hanover’s council. According to Braun’s memory, Niverville’s representative didn’t even live in the community.
“The aspirations of the community had outgrown that which [Hanover] was willing to support,” Braun concludes. “You can look at it two ways. You can say ‘We weren’t getting enough’ or you could say ‘We wanted more.’ And both are true… If you don’t have enough, you aspire to more, so obviously the communication between us and the RM wasn’t satisfactory to what we wanted, and [incorporation] grew out of that.”
Municipal Tension
Tensions in Niverville finally resulted in action as a group of local businessmen and community champions initiated a public meeting. They proposed the incorporation of the village of Niverville and the hiring of Winnipeg lawyer Charles Chappell to represent them to the province.
“We were able to get enough people to sign [a petition] and the [provincial] government agreed that we should have our own [council],” says Bergmann.
According to a resident at the time, Hanover wasn’t pleased with the separation proposal, but they eventually agreed to the arrangement if Niverville reimbursed the RM in the sum of $1 million to compensate for the loss of tax revenue.
Chappell appealed this arrangement to the provincial municipal board on Niverville’s behalf. The municipal board later flipped things around, determining that the RM of Hanover would instead pay $2 million to Niverville in order to assist the village in getting its start.
This odd turn of events caused much friction between Niverville and Hanover in the coming years. But it was just the boost Niverville needed to begin ambitious plans for the installation of a gravity sewer system to replace the privately-owned septic fields that had been located on every lot.
“The first sewer system in Niverville was in 1970,” says Bergmann. “If it hadn’t been for Chuck Chappell, we [wouldn’t have managed that].”
The First Council
In the fall of 1968, the local Chamber of Commerce sponsored a candidates meeting with the five men who were running for council. All five were voted in by acclamation.
On January 6, 1969, council’s inaugural public meeting took place, chaired by Hanover reeve Albert Driedger. The new mayor and councillors were officially sworn into their positions by the province’s Deputy Minister of Municipal Affairs, R.L. McDonald.
At the end of the meeting, lots were pulled to determine the length of each councillor’s first term in office. Bergmann and Pauls were installed for one year, Podjan and Stoesz for two.
The enthusiastic new council had humble beginnings, renting a miniscule nine-by-nine-foot room in the original Niverville Credit Union at 86 Main Street. The rent for that space came to $6 per meeting, and councillors received a monthly stipend of about $50.
That building was later purchased by council, expanded, and used as a town office for another 50 years—it’s the very building that council moved out of earlier this year.
Bergmann recalls those early meetings in the tight, poorly furnished space. Mayor Kuzenko, he says, liked to smoke cigars. It was Bergmann who finally mustered up the courage to ask him to take his habit outside.
He describes Niverville as an active, vibrant, and welcoming community even before incorporation. The business sector was also thriving for a village of its size, and after gaining independence in 1969 progress came quickly.
During his first year in office, Bergmann recalls an uncle who warned him that council’s mandate for growth meant risking the arrival of a broad range of cultures and religions. Bergmann didn’t see this as a threat. Fifty years later, he’s still proud of his hometown, a place that boasts a lively fusion of ethnic diversity. In fact, this aspect of the town is truer in 2019 than ever before.
In the first few months, council hired residents to fill a variety of positions, including fire chief, policing constable, public works, and garbage collection. New streetlights were added and a grader needed to be purchased to maintain the gravel streets and clear snow. In 1970, eight and a half miles of sewer mains were installed. A couple of years later, the main streets were paved.
“We were the first in Manitoba to have a continuous sewer pipe from the pump to the lagoon,” boasts Bergmann.
Greater Autonomy
Braun says that Niverville was the last community in Manitoba to separate from a municipality and gain complete autonomy over its own affairs, something that hasn’t happened again in the 50 years since. And he points out that there’s a reason for this.
In the past 25 years or so, he says the province has worked to create ways for communities with populations over 250 to better operate within municipalities by giving them designations as local urban districts (LUDs). LUDs can have their own elected councillors and are provided with a budget, giving them greater autonomy.
“These LUDs actually have some power,” Braun says. “They speak to council about what is happening in their communities… Today, I don’t know if Niverville would have to [separate from Hanover], but they certainly had to back then [in order] to move forward.”
Braun recalls tension between Niverville and Hanover councils for years after incorporation, often regarding boundaries, drainage, and other disputes. In 1995, when Braun was elected as mayor, council made a request of Hanover for a land annexation which would create the Fifth Avenue Estates development. By that point, he says, Hanover and Niverville’s relations had improved greatly.
Bergmann now lives with his wife Susan in a Heritage Life Retirement Living suite and is enjoying retirement in the community that he’s called home since the mid-1960s. Thinking back to his 12 years on council still puts a smile on his face.
He chuckles. “We have it so good in Niverville that, if anyone complains, let them come and see me!”
