One hundred forty years ago Mennonites from Imperial Russia migrated to the Great Plains and Prairies of North America. The feature articles in this year’s issue tell that story. Ernie Braun begins by revisiting the question of why Mennonites chose to emigrate and why some chose Canada, while others the United States. The diaries of the 1873 delegation that toured North America are used in Hans Werner’s article to explore their personal wonderment at travel and the new sights and people they met. James Urry revisits the question of how instrumental William Hespeler actually was in making the immigration to Manitoba happen, while Adolf Ens explores the diversity of faith expression that emerged in Canada soon after Mennonites arrived. These fresh looks are accompanied by reprints of previous story tellers. An excerpt from Ferdinand Schultz’s 1938 history of Mountain Lake, Minnesota and a 1975 Mennonite Quarterly Review article by John D. Unruh and his son on settlement in South Dakota, offer windows into settlement in the United States. Other writings of the day tell us about being stuck in the ice on Lake Superior and British impressions of Mennonites stopping over in Liverpool.