On the Banks of the Irtysh River

It is November 1926. The S.S. Melita is steaming toward St. John New Brunswick, carrying Russian Mennonite immigrants to Canada. The ship’s surgeon, Dr. J. Benny, meets the Rempel family when he is called to treat one of their daughters. Over the course of the voyage, Dr. Benny learns the Rempels’ story of tragic loss and of their struggle to survive in western Siberia during years of revolution and civil war. In response, he tells the story of the Allied intervention in Russia’s civil war, of his part in it, and the events that brought him to Omsk in 1918. Along the way, he and the Rempels form a bond of friendship and discover how very small the world really is through the memory of a single random act of kindness.