![]() |
|
Giselle Waldner is a Schmiedeleut Hutterite known for documenting her daily life living on a colony in the prairies of Manitoba, Canada. Through her social media presence and writing, she provides a rare, personal insider's perspective on the unique traditions, communal work, and lifestyle of the Hutterite community. [PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.facebook.com/share/1GjLHpZcWU/] |
Giselle Waldner is a Schmiedeleut Hutterite known for documenting her daily life living on a colony in the prairies of Manitoba, Canada. Through her social media presence and writing, she provides a rare, personal insider's perspective on the unique traditions, communal work, and lifestyle of the Hutterite community.
I will post an article about her and Dariusleut Hutterites hutterites before I give my thoughts and links on her content.
As Hutterites’ views on social media evolve, the world gets a fresh look at their culture on YouTube
Colonies across the Prairies are striking their own balance between a rustic religious lifestyle and modern technology – and facing some intergenerational friction along the way
Eliana Berger
Published October 21, 2022
This article was published more than 3 years ago. Some information may no longer be current.
When Giselle Waldner uploaded her first video blog to YouTube in April, 2020, she wanted people to know what life looked like on her Manitoba Hutterite colony at that time. She showed her viewers a classroom: a large, deserted room with dim lighting, chairs neatly stacked on desks.
“It used to be so full of joy and laughter and fun times,” she said in the video. “But now, because of what we are going through, everything is empty. And it is sad.”
The pandemic was at its first peak then. Because COVID-19 cases were surging on some colonies, Hutterites across the Prairies were facing discrimination, with some local businesses refusing to serve them.
“I heard it over the radio,” the 25-year-old says in a video call. “People were discriminating and being mean. I just wanted to show that maybe it’s because you don’t understand us and you don’t know a lot.”
On her colony, everything was locked down at the time. “We did have church, but it was over an intercom system at home. We didn’t eat in the kitchen. When we did work, everybody was either divided into multiple rooms or more than six feet apart.”
It was this discrepancy that ultimately gave her the push to do what she had long wanted to: share videos about her life as a Hutterite. To date, 23,900 people follow her on YouTube, where she shares Hutterite hymns, explains wedding traditions, or shows how her colony cans corn.
In one of her recent videos, Giselle Waldner gives an update on fall activities in her colony.
Across the Prairies, Hutterite colonies maintain their traditional way of life, living communally, dressing modestly and eschewing many of the social norms by which they are surrounded.
Ms. Waldner’s YouTube career is unusual – she says she doesn’t know if there are others who do what she does. But social media, and the smartphones that deliver it, present a specific conundrum.
Unlike some other Anabaptist groups such as the Amish, Hutterites are not critical of technology in general. Their farming equipment is always state-of-the-art, and their farms are among the largest and most modern on the Prairies. In Alberta, Hutterite communities produce 80 per cent of the province’s eggs, 33 per cent of its hogs, and more than 10 per cent of its milk, according to an article published in the Agricultural History Society in 2019.
But smartphones are different from farming equipment. The internet is vast, much of its content at odds with the Hutterite’s values. And different colonies are responding very differently to the challenge this poses to their culture.
|
Clouds blanket the skies over Spring Point, a colony founded in 1960 in a valley on the southern slopes of Alberta's Porcupine Hills. |
![]() |
|
Outside, women dry clothes in the chinook winds; inside, a group makes a large batch of cookies. |
There are three groups of Hutterites. Dariusleut and Lehrerleut have their colonies in Alberta and Saskatchewan. The Schmiedeleut have settled down in Manitoba.
Schmiedleut girls
gathering beans [PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.hutterites.org/]
They all share the same belief and live in a “community of goods,” which means that they share their possessions and own the assets of their farms collectively. To an outsider, their traditional clothing is mostly indistinguishable. Lehrerleut are considered to be the strictest group, though, and Schmiedeleut the most lenient.
Giselle Waldner is a
Schmiedeleut Hutterite known for documenting her daily life living on a colony
in the prairies of Manitoba, Canada. Through her social media presence and
writing, she provides a rare, personal insider's perspective on the unique traditions,
communal work, and lifestyle of the Hutterite community. [PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9Q2eD5znzV-2-fkErJMmQg]
On Ms. Waldner’s Schmiedeleut colony,
technology is fairly open. People have laptops and smartphones, and women
organize their work in a WhatsApp chat.
Ms. Waldner found YouTubers in school: “During my breaks and in my free time, I would watch other YouTubers. I was intrigued by the way they projected their lives and it sounded like so much fun.”
But when she started uploading her videos, she was met with disapproval.
“It was difficult for people to see me doing that,” she says. “I’m thinking because YouTube is such a new thing. It was like that back when people started getting cameras and taking pictures. It took people a while to grasp the concept of that.”
Three- to six-year-old
children at Spring Point's kindergarten get treats after waking up from their
daily nap.
![]() |
|
Matilda Walter straightens bedding in her home and reads from a colony recipe book. |
The use of a smartphone is much more controversial in Alberta.
On Spring Point Hutterite Colony in Southern Alberta, Matilda Walter sits outside the kindergarten with her husband, George. She is skeptical of a Hutterite-run YouTube channel. “We have nothing to be ashamed of, but we’re not celebrities,” she said. “We just want to live a quiet, secluded, humble life.”
The Hutterites don’t want to be considered proud people, she explained. It’s inconsistent with their faith.
At Spring Point, a Dariusleut colony, there are rules around smartphone use. When a boy turns 18, he gets called into the minister’s office. The minister tells him the dos and donts of the device. That it should be used as a tool – for example, to organize for someone to be picked up in town. That it should not be used for entertainment – for example, to watch movies of any kind. Then the boy gets a phone for himself. It is paid for by the colony.
“Like one old minister once said: There is nothing we can do about it, the phones are here. The only thing we can do is warn our young people of the harm behind them if they are misused,” said Mr. Walter, the colony’s financial boss and a member of its council. The council makes decisions about the development of the colony – like who will get a smartphone, and when. (The girls don’t get one – “not yet.”)
“We don’t want to be left behind,” Mr. Walter said. “But we should always have the spiritual side in front of us.”
![]() |
|
Sarah Walter and other girls play after completing their chores. Girls at Spring Point do not get the colony-funded smartphones boys are issued at age 18. |
![]() |
|
Kaitlyn Walter, 5, has her hair braided; a young girl sets the table for dinner after children aged six to 15 had their lunch. |
The colonies try to prepare their children for the new technology. It does worry the Hutterite parents: how much easier it is for their teenagers to sneak off now that there are so many vehicles on a farm, how easy it is to come across inappropriate content on the internet, now that there are free WiFi hot spots all over town.
“Teenagers are the same in every culture,” Ms. Walter said. And that means that like in every culture, they like to break rules – for example, by sneaking in smartphones that they are not supposed to have.
Many young people leave their colonies at some point, though they have always done that. The vast majority of them return after a while.
Ms. Waldner left her colony twice, for about a year in total, and came back both times. There were a lot of things she missed, especially family. “I remember I was voice-messaging with one of our girls and then the dinner bell rang. And I was like: I wish I could come home and go to dinner.”
She doesn’t think that modern media will change the Hutterites’ traditions or their way of life. Though people on her colony own smartphones and laptops, the devices haven’t taken over social life. Evenings are spent with the community: kayaking, sledding, making bonfires.
George and Matilda Walter, too, are confident they will succeed in preserving their culture.
“Well, we were established in 1536,” said Mr. Walter. “So if it wouldn’t be the right foundation, it would have crumbled a long time ago.”
![]() |
|
Amy Walter sits in the school room at Spring Point. |
MY THOUGHTS:
Just like the Amish and Mennonites, the Hutterites also follow the Anabaptist four core values: Faith, Family, Community and Simple Living. I have great admiration for their founder, Jakob Hutter and their ‘second’ Hutter, Eberhard Arnold. I personally love the idea of the common purse, which I recommend sharing money among your family.
There are three branches of Hutterites - Schmiedeleut, Dariusleut and Lehrerleut. They also have their Neo Hutterite groups like the Bruderhof and Hutterite Christian Communities. Each branches have different rules, similar to the Old and New Order Amish and Para-Amish groups. If you notice the Schmiedeleut Hutterites are more open to technology than the Dariusleut branch.
Giselle Waldner is a Schmiedeleut Hutterite, so she is more open to social media and some technology. She does remind me of Laura from the Bruderhof and Emmy Barth Maendel, whom both appear on social media.
I enjoy her videos and recommend her book. See her links and follow her.
Giselle Waldner links:
https://www.youtube.com/@gisellewaldner9406
https://www.instagram.com/gisellewaldner/
https://www.facebook.com/TheSentientSeries/
![]() | |
|
GOLDEN HARVEST: LIFE IN A HUTTERITE COLONY by Giselle Waldner (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
A book about
the-day-to-day life of living in a Hutterite community located on the prairies
of Manitoba Canada. [PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.amazon.com.au/GOLDEN-HARVEST-LIFE-HUTTERITE-COLONY-ebook/dp/B0G9BQQ3W5] |
PHOTOS OF HUTTERITE AND ANABAPTIST FRAUEN:
![]() |
|
Every first weekend of July, we host College Student Weekend at the castle in Franklin. The weekend is full of lively conversations, networking, and meangful connection with others who understand the demands of the college years. College students left this weekend saying they felt inspired and encouraged to go into their studies with purpose and joy. It was a beautiful, worthwhile time together! [PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1463506755812405&set=pcb.1463506822479065] [ALBUM SOURCE: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1FVbv2hcGF/] |
Coming together is a
beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success. - Henry Ford Courage, hard work,
self-mastery, and intelligent effort are all essential to successful life. - Theodore
Roosevelt PHOTO CAPTION: Workers
in the Fox Hill Community kitchen, Bruderhof. Photo by Danny Burrows (2019).
(Instagram) [PHOTO SOURCE: https://honey.nine.com.au/latest/what-to-know-bruderhof-religious-cult-sussex-united-kingdom/ac1ec8b2-5262-42a2-8230-de6a7af62ffb] https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2025/07/wiedertaufer-frauen-bei-der-arbeit.html
![]() |
|
“𝕲𝖊𝖑𝖆𝖘𝖘𝖊𝖓𝖍𝖊𝖎𝖙“ - 𝕬 𝖒𝖊𝖉𝖎𝖊𝖛𝖆𝖑 𝕲𝖊𝖗𝖒𝖆𝖓 𝖜𝖔𝖗𝖉 𝖉𝖊𝖓𝖔𝖙𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖆 𝖕𝖗𝖎𝖈𝖊𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖘 𝖒𝖊𝖉𝖎𝖊𝖛𝖆𝖑 𝖈𝖔𝖓𝖈𝖊𝖕𝖙 𝖙𝖍𝖆𝖙 𝖒𝖆𝖉𝖊 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝕬𝖓𝖆𝖇𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖘 𝖆 𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖞 𝖚𝖓𝖎𝖖𝖚𝖊 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖇𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖘𝖊𝖉 𝖕𝖊𝖔𝖕𝖑𝖊. [PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1H1JbGigAW/] https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2025/07/wiedertaufer-frauen-bei-der-arbeit.html |
RELATED LINKS:
For the first time, the Lord is truly freeing the devout hearts and consciences from human worries, delivering them from bondage.… Christ has liberated them all and set them free.… Have no doubt that the only freedom we can have is the freedom of Christ, not the freedom of the flesh. We are made free by God alone through Christ, redeemed and saved in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. - Jakob Hutter
The next two years were a time of spiritual maturing for the Anabaptists. Hutter was a gifted leader, and many of the squabbles which had plagued the church before he came melted away. The joy of the community, now well-shepherded, is palpable in Hutter’s letters. He was happy, of course, that they were free of persecution, but happier still that they were no longer in spiritual perplexity, that the community had not succumbed to the slavery of personal ambition or disorder. As he wrote to those in Tyrol (see above quote) [https://www.plough.com/articles/jakob-hutter-radical-reformer]
https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2024/02/martyrs-mirror-jakob-hutter-1500-to.html
“Let us test our faith in the fire. This fire will harm my soul as little as the fiery furnace harmed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.” – Last words of Jakob Hutter
https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2026/02/490th-martyrdom-of-jakob-hutter.html
https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2024/07/150-years-of-hutterites-in-north.html
https://hutt-writevoice.blogspot.com/2015/10/more-on-huttererpark-opening-in.html
https://hutt-writevoice.blogspot.com/2016/02/this-day-in-hutterite-history-jakob.html
https://hutterites.org/beliefs/nine-misrepresentation/
https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2025/05/martyrs-mirror-dirk-willems-died-may-16.html
https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-common-purse-in-bruderhof-hutterites.html
EBERHARD ARNOLD WEBSITE:
We live in an age where it seems Jesus has become almost unknown or his words distorted and disfigured, his work weakened. All the more, we must rediscover this Jesus and hold him up before all the world. We must place the Jesus of the four Gospels in the center of our faith and our life.
Remembering Eberhard Arnold 90 years later - The Jesus of the Four Gospels By Eberhard Arnold
https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2025/11/remembering-eberhard-arnold-90-years.html
Love Is Work Working together with others is the best way to test our faith, to find out whether or not we are ready to live a life of Christian fellowship. Work is the crucial test of faith because such a life can come into being only where people work for love. Love demands action, and the only really valid action is work. Christian fellowship means fellowship in work...Talk, May 1934 By Eberhard Arnold
EBERHARD ARNOLD ON SIMPLE LIVING
https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2025/07/eberhard-arnold-on-simple-living.html
“We must live in community because we are stimulated by the same creative Spirit of unity who calls nature to unity and through whom work and culture shall become community in God.” — Eberhard Arnold
PLAIN PEOPLE AND MUTUAL AID - WHY WE LIVE IN COMMUNITY BY EBERHARD ARNOLD
https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2024/11/plain-people-and-mutual-aid-why-we-live.html
https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2023/07/140th-birthday-for-eberhard-arnold-july.html
https://www.eberhardarnold.com/
https://www.eberhardarnold.com/biography
https://www.facebook.com/EberhardArnold
https://twitter.com/eberhard_arnold
https://www.anabaptistwiki.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Eberhard_Arnold
https://www.bookey.app/quote-author/eberhard-arnold
https://www.plough.com/en/topics/faith/reading-romans-13-under-fascism
OTHER EBERHARD ARNOLD LINKS:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eberhard_Arnold
https://www.anotherlifeispossible.com/themes/what-money-cant-buy/eberhard-arnold
https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/from-mutual-aid-to-global-action
https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/our-garden-must-be-gods-garden
ARTICLE BY EBERHARD ARNOLD LINKS:
https://www.plough.com/en/topics/community/church-community/from-property-to-community
https://www.plough.com/en/topics/faith/reading-romans-13-under-fascism
https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/politics/becoming-flesh-and-blood
https://www.eberhardarnold.com/archive/2020/02/25/2012598714s
https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/our-garden-must-be-gods-garden
THE HUTTERITES LINKS:
https://www.facebook.com/TheBruderhof
https://www.anotherlifeispossible.com/
https://koorong.com/search?q=plain%20spoken
https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2023/11/community-living-quotes.html













No comments:
Post a Comment