Tag: community

Brilliant Jam Factory was Thriving Industry

by William M. Rozinkin

Among the many communal enterprises of the Doukhobor Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood (CCUB), the most remembered is their Kootenay-Columbia (K-C) Preserving Works Jam Factory in Brilliant, British Columbia. Purchased in Nelson in 1911 and relocated to Brilliant in 1915, it was an important industrial asset of the CCUB, processing the berries and fruit grown in its vast communal orchards. At its peak in 1934, the factory had a jam pack of 35,000 cases. Following the demise of the CCUB in 1937-1938, the jam factory was taken over by the British Columbia government. In 1943, it was destroyed by arson. The following article by Kootenay resident and historian William M. Rozinkin (1923-2007) recalls the thriving industry of the Brilliant jam factory. Reproduced by permission from the Nelson Daily News (June 9, 1967).

When the Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood purchased 15,320 acres of land in B.C. interior in 1907, it launched a development program that spread throughout the Kootenay-Boundary regions. Besides some cultivated areas in Grand Forks all the rest were heavily forested and many inaccessible.

The Doukhobors, headed by Peter Lordly Verigin, faced hard pioneer work. By 1911, the communities pushed back the forests and planted 51,000 fruit trees and were building residential villages, roads, ferries and sawmills. By 1914, over 3,000 acres were under orchards and hundreds of acres planted with strawberries, raspberries and other berries. Fields of vegetables and grain were also producing abundant crops as irrigation systems began operating. More land was acquired.

With the expanding supply of fruit and berries, the CCUB purchased the Kootenay Jam Co. factory in Nelson in 1911, whose label proudly stated, “By Special Appointment, Perveyors to H.E. the Governor-General.” The factory was located on Front Street in the building later occupied by National Fruit Co.

Sorting apples at Brilliant, BC, circa 1920. British Columbia Archives C-01535.

Following the purchase, the factory became known as the Kootenay-Columbia Preserving Works, producers of the KC Brand products. It operated on the location for five years with six jam making kettles.

In a letter dated March 4, 1915, Mr. Verigin informed the Nelson Board of Trade that the CCUB had decided to relocate the factory from Nelson to Brilliant to be near the large plantations that supplied the factory. Besides freight costs, shipping time was also delaying the processing of berries when they were at their best, he said.

At that time the prairies were purchasing 50 per cent of their fruit from the U.S.A., 35 per cent from Ontario, and only 15 per cent from B.C.

When the KC operations began in 1911, the factory’s business amounted to $25,000, with the manufacture of 70 tons. Ninety two tons were produced in 1912 and the following year, 177 tons.

Immediately after the factory went into production at Brilliant in 1915, Mr. Verigin’s progressive policy promoted the construction of a plant for the manufacture of tin cans needed for jam distribution. In the first operating season of 1916, 150,000 cans were made.

The new jam factory now had 12 special jam-making copper kettles that operated to full capacity processing berries the same day they were received. The strict grading of incoming berries and fruit, together with supervised cleanliness, had far-reaching effects. Nothing else was used besides pure cane sugar and berries in the old English recipe introduced to the K-C operation by Harry Beach in 1911. All jam found a ready market.

With the construction of extensive irrigation systems and with an additional 1000 acres of fruit trees added by 1919, the agricultural development leaped forward, and the $100,000 factory worked at full capacity.

The K-C Preserving Works was the pride of the communities,” recalled William J. Soukoreff of Thrums. “The reputable quality of its products was known in Canada and in the U.S.A.”

Mr. Soukoreff worked from 1915 to 1928 in the offices of the CCUB and its other business holdings, the K-C Fuel Supply in Trail, Salmo Valley Lumber and Pole Col, Slocan Valley Lumber CO., and at the K-C offices in Brilliant. The CCUB also maintained businesses in Nelson and others in Brand Forks, and on the prairies. He went to work in the sales division of the factory in 1928, and recalled his successful business relations with western wholesalers and chain store establishments. Every major city in western Canada was a customer for K-C Brand jam.

The community also maintained two tomato canning plants, one in Brilliant and the other in Grand Forks. While a lot of canned tomatoes were used at home, up to 14 freight car loads were also shipped annually from Brilliant, where tomato canning facilities were located in the jam factory.

In August 1934, Mr. Soukoreff returned home from a sales trip east with orders for 18 car loads of jam from that single trip! “Favorable prairie crop conditions had a direct effect on fruit sales,” he said. Although times were hard, the 18 cars were sold at highest prices.

Doukhobor Jam Factory at Brilliant, BC, circa 1930. British Columbia Archives D-06930.

The same year the factory had a jam pack of 35,000 cases. This included 10,000 cases of strawberry jam that led in popularity, followed by plum and raspberry. Each case consisted of 12 four-pound cans of jam.

During the depression years, the combination of strawberry-apple jam appealed to the bargain-hunting housewife. It was during those years that unemployed persons picked huckleberries and made better than average wages selling them to the factory. About 2,000 cases of huckleberry jam were made in one season, and it was K-C who first introduced this jam to the prairies. Its demand was great.

Mr. Soukoreff recalled that the largest jam pack was the year after Peter Chistiakov Verigin arrived to head the community and doubled the production facilities of the K-C factory. With 24 jam-making kettles in operation, thousands of cases were loaded into 70 freight cars for eastern markets. “The largest obstacle to our sales on the prairies were the freight rates that favored the eastern producers,” he said.

Many old-timers still recall the hundreds of wagons loaded with berries and fruit that streamed to the packing sheds and factory during the summer and fall. They came from Ootischenia, Brilliant, Shoreacres, Robson, Pass Creek, Glade, and Slocan Valley. Grand Forks made heavy rail shipments.

Not only the Doukhobor communities supplied the factory. Farmers from Slocan Valley and others living along Kootenay Lake as far as Creston brought their berries by truck, while others shipped by railway.

Visitors were common at the factory, as they came to view the making of the “best jam they ever tasted”. When the Gyro Club District No. 8 held their convention in Nelson in August, 1935, they toured and had a banquet in the K-C factory. Making the trip were 170 Gyros and Gyrettes, in 42 cars. E.A. Mann, former Nelson club president, recalled the occasion. “It was a big hit with the Gyros,” he said. “The Doukhobor hospitality and cleanliness was most impressive. And their jam was good too!” The club was guided through the factory by John J. Sherbinin, business manager; Peter P. Zibin, jam maker and supervisor, and Joseph P. Shukin, executive director. For a gift each lady was given a four-pound can of jam.

The visitors saw the kettles in operation, activated by steam heat and looked after by an attendant. After the jam was cooked it was poured into smaller copper pots that were placed on wheeled “turtles” and taken to the cooler. Here the temperature was reduced and the jam received final skimming. It was then taken to the tables where it was ladled out into the sterilized cans. The protective special covering was placed on the cold contents and the can sealed with the lid. These cans were moved to the lower floor on the elevator, where labels were affixed on each can designating the contents. They were then placed in cases for shipment.

Most visitors were fascinated by the cherry-pitter and other machinery in the operation that was capable of producing up to 1,055 cans of jam per hour and produced up to 43,000 cases annually.

Among those who worked many years at the factory was Peter P. Zibin, under whose watchful supervision jam was made from 1915 to 1935. William J. Makaeff succeeded him. At peak season the factory employed up to 60 persons.

Office and staff of the Doukhobor Jam Factory at Brilliant, BC, circa 1925. British Columbia Archives C-01593.

In operating the K-C factory and other enterprises the Doukhobor communities tried to establish economic wellbeing for all its members, and where the aged, the orphaned, the widowed and the crippled also had food, clothing and shelter. During those years there was no welfare assistance to the needy, and this practice was a continuation of Doukhobor tradition.

Under the guidance of Lordly Verigin (head and organizer), all capital was turned into development of field and factory that formed the material foundation for this society that had a penniless beginning. When funds were needed for large projects, the executive office borrowed.

The rapid growth and strict religion of the Doukhobor community at times brought considerable suspicion, misunderstanding and disfavour.

In 1924, the year Mr. Verigin was killed in an unsolved train bombing, the CCUB holdings were valued at $6 ½ million, with $1 million owing.

A packing plant’s executive member also escaped death four years later when a speeding auto fired five shots at him near Castlegar. There were no arrests.

Peter Chistiakov Verigin arrived in 1927 and continued in his father’s post. In 10 years under his administration, the CCUB repaid $1 ½ million on loans and expanded manufacturing plants, built new ones, added acreages, settlements, etc. amounting to $1 million. Despite the depression of the 30’s, that caused membership to drop 43 per cent, and the attacking terrorism (total terrorist losses amounted to $1 ½ million), he reduced the debt to $319,276. In 1939 this amounted to 4 per cent of the value of community property. But it led to bankruptcy, foreclosure and ruin of the Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood enterprises.

Four years after Peter Chistiakov Verigin died in 1939 the Brilliant factory was destroyed by terrorists. Its replacement value was $300,000. Besides valuable equipment and large stocks of tin cans, this “largest industrial building of its kind in the interior” also had its own electric lighting plant. It had been taken over by the B.C. government following finance companies’ mortgage foreclosure. It was insured.

Another jam factory was constructed in Grand Forks in 1935. It was also destroyed by terrorists in the same year, bringing a loss of $75,000.

The CCUB has been replaced by the Union of Spiritual Communities of Christ as the major Doukhobor organization. It was organized by Peter Chistiakov Verigin in 1938.

 

For More Information

For more information on the Doukhobors’ Kootenay-Columbia Preserving Works jam enterprise in Nelson, British Columbia, see the article, The Doukhobor Jam Factory in Nelson, British Columbia by Greg Nesteroff.

Categories
Historical Stories and Articles

Doukhobors in the Boundary

by Vera Novokshonoff, Lucy Reibin & Marion Obedkoff

Woven into the fabric that is Grand Forks are many different nationalities, and, with their personalities, their skills and their culture, they have enhanced “the Boundary” and given to this city a character all its own. Of all these nationalities, the Doukhobors, by their very numbers and distinctive culture have had a more profound effect on the character and life of the community than any other group. The following article by Vera Novokshonoff (Kanigan), Lucy Reibin (Plotnikoff) and Marion Obedkoff (Grummett) outlines the history and settlement of the Doukhobors at Grand Forks in the Boundary region of British Columbia. Reproduced by permission from Boundary Historical Society, Report Nos. 3 and 4, 1964.

Historical Background

The Doukhobors comprise a large percentage of the population in the Boundary District. A religious sect of Russian origin, their history dates back some 300 years. Encyclopedia Britannica has this to say of their religious background:

“The name Doukhobor was given by the Russian Orthodox clergy to a community of non-conformist peasants. The word signifies “spirit-fighters” and was intended by the priesthood to convey that they fight against the Spirit of God, but the Doukhobors themselves accepted it as signifying that they fight, not against, but for and with the Spirit. The foundation of the Doukhobors’ teaching consists in the belief that the Spirit of God is present in the soul of man, and directs him by its word within him. They understand the coming of Christ in the flesh, His works, teaching and sufferings, in a spiritual sense. The whole teaching of the Doukhobors’ is penetrated with the Gospel spirit of love; worshipping God in the spirit, they affirm that the outward Church and all that is performed in it and concerns it has no importance for them; the Church is where two or three are gathered gather, i.e. united in the name of Christ.”

“They hold all people equal and brethren. Obedience to Government authorities they do not consider binding upon them in those cases when the demands of the authorities are in conflict with their conscience; while in all that not infringe what they regard as the will of God they willingly fulfill. They consider killing, violence and in general all relations to living beings not based on love as opposed to their conscience and to the will of God. They are industrious and abstemious in their lives, and living up to the standard of their faith present one of the nearest approaches to the realization of the Christian ideal which has been attained. In many ways they have a close resemblance to the Quakers.”

Their renunciation of rituals of the Russian Orthodox Church, as worshipping man-made images or ikons brought upon them persecution by Church and state in Tsarist Russia. This was intensified by their refusal of military service. Influential humanitarians, particularly the famous writer Tolstoy and the Society of Friends in England interceded in their behalf, and arrangements were finally made and some 7500 Doukhobor immigrants came to Canada in 1899, settling in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Group of Doukhobor immigrants aboard the SS Lake Superior, 1899. British Columbia Archives E-07233.

Subsequently, a majority of them refused to comply with the swearing of the oath of allegiance under the Homestead Act, and lost their lands which they had worked on. These were taken away from them. They then decided to move to move to British Columbia, where by purchasing land, instead of accepting grants, they avoided the necessity of swearing to swear the oath of allegiance. They settled predominantly in the West Kootenay and Boundary Districts.

Arrival in Grand Forks

Land was purchased in 1909 by their leader Peter Lordly Verigin. John Sherbinin, Sr., who in later years established Boundary Sawmills Ltd., was his interpreter at the time. John Sherbinin learned the English language in Swan River, Manitoba where he worked in a store the year these people came into Canada. Another associate during the purchasing was Nick S. Zeboroff.

The purchases consisted of the Coryell Ranch (the site of the Brick Yard) from the Coryell family; Murray Creek (presently Outlook) which was open range; the Vaughan Ranch (at the foot of Spencer Hill) from the Vaughans; 4th of July Creek (Spencer) from Hoffman; and the Collins place from H. W. Collins. This involved a total of 4,182 acres.

In March 1909, 12 men came over to Grand Forks by train, with two women accompanying to cook for them. These people amongst the Doukhobors were known as postniki, ones who wished to be abstemious to the point of not eating butter to eliminate the necessity of keeping cows, which would lead to having to sell calves for butchering.

The first group managed to house themselves in rough dwellings that were on the property. Until the warm weather opened up, they were occupied cleaning things up on the place. Another group of 14 came in April.

Industries

They put up a small sawmill just below the site of the present Doukhobor cemetery, and started to produce rough lumber (there was no planer) for the construction of their communal dwellings. Later, when a factory was established a brick siding was put on these buildings.

Logs were cut in the vicinity and were brought to the mill on horse-drawn dollies. In the winter sleighs replaced the dollies. Soon as the supply of logs was exhausted on the place, the sawmill would be moved to another suitable location. William Fofonoff was the sawyer; Alex A. Wishloff, the engineer and Philip P. Stoochnoff, the fireman.

Orchards

The same year, spring of 1909, they planted fruit trees – apples, pears, Italian prunes, cherries, and other plants, such as currants, gooseberries, raspberries, etc. George C. Zebroff and Andrew J. Gritchen were in charge of the orchards. The wives and families of the men-folk came over in the summer of 1909, to join in the communal effort.

Brick Plant

Production of bricks began the same year (1909) beside the clay pit where the Coryells had run a small plant. The same crude machinery was used. Horses supplied the power to turn the clay mixer. Bricks one at a time, were taken by hand and put in rows to dry, which took two weeks. They were put in a pile leaving air space between each brick, old bricks piled around them and covered with clay so there would be no air space. A big fire was built on both sides to burn until the bricks got red hot. Air was let in from the top to make the fire burn stronger. This went on for about a month and had to be under constant watch to make sure the fire did not get too hot for the bricks to melt, nor too cold for them to turn black. After this process, the bricks were put under a roof for further drying.

Doukhobor community brick factory at Grand Forks, BC, circa 1920. British Columbia Archives C-01714.

As early as 1910, the workers produced 22 to 24 thousand bricks a day. Even at that slow pace, 2 million bricks were produced during the summer. William Razinkin was the original man in charge. Later on, Mike Demoskoff and John Gritchen were prominent in the making of bricks. In time, machinery replaced horse-power, and the operation was put on a more efficient and productive basis. Bricks from the plant were widely sold. Their good quality established a wide and well known reputation.

Flour Mill

The Flour Mill was put up in 1910, with two men handling its operation. Wheat, grown in the valley, was brought to the mill and milled by grinding on a large stone without refining or discarding anything in the process. Bread made of this flour was dark, but very healthy. William Fofonoff (the original sawyer) was the miller, later replaced by his brother Peter. In 1917-18 production of linseed oil was started at the flour mill. This became a favourite product with the Doukhobor people. They were and still are particularly fond of using it with sauerkraut.

Development

The work of the first settlers that came in 1909-10 was to prepare living quarters and other primary facilities for those that were to follow. The lumber produced by the first sawmill was used in building communal dwellings, the first of which was built in 1910 near the site of the Flour Mill just below the present Doukhobor cemetery at Sion, formerly known as Fruktova.

Also in 1909, work was started on building an irrigation pipeline. A trench 2 to 3 feet deep was dug from First of July Creek to Sion following a line above the roadbed of the Great Northern Railway, and pipes were laid extending for about 2 miles to bring water to the newly planted orchards and gardens. A few years later when the Great Northern dismantled the railway track, the pipes were relocated to follow the road bed and enlarged to 6 inches in diameter to carry more water. Later another pipeline was built to supply homes with drinking water, taken from a creek running halfway up the mountain at Sion. Water was also piped at the Outlook settlement for drinking as well as for irrigation purposes.

In 1911-12 there followed more Doukhobor settlers with their families, so that by 1913 there were approximately 1000 souls living in the vicinity of Grand Forks.

With more people, the work of development progressed more rapidly. In those years there were built approximately 24 large communal dwellings by the newcomers. At the same time, the planted trees started to bear fruit, so that besides supplying the local needs, fruit was also shipped to other markets. A fruit packing plant was built in 1920. In those years a total of 120 to 130 carloads of fruit – apples, pears, prunes, etc. were shipped annually to outside markets, as well as some berries such as strawberries, black currants, raspberries, etc.

Doukhobor community blacksmith, Grand Forks, BC, circa 1920. British Columbia Archives C-01735.

The lumbering industry also expanded, sawmill operations were extended, tracts of timber stands taken and worked, so that about half of the men were employed in the lumbering industry. At that time most of the heavy work such as plowing and cultivating the land was done by horses, for which purpose every communal village had a team of excellent work horses, hay and feed for which were grown on communal lands.

Altogether the Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood Ltd., to which the first Doukhobor settlers belonged, notwithstanding the fact that they lost their lands in Saskatchewan and had to go heavily into debt to buy land and other necessities, by dint of hard work and frugal living had built a thriving economy in the first two score years of life in Grand Forks, which continued to grow and increase in value.

It was still growing when in 1935 a canning factory was built to process tomatoes and other small fruits such as strawberries and raspberries. Unfortunately, this factory was burned down in the same year. Then came years of economic depression, starting in 1929 and continuing for a decade which had a serious effect on the economy and which was one of the reasons that brought the foreclosure on the mortgages held by financial companies, The Sun Life Assurance Co. and The National Trust Co. and the subsequent buying of the land by the Government of British Columbia to prevent mass evictions.

We deem it proper to return back and look on some other facets of Doukhobor life.

Communal Way of Life

At the head was the central administration under the leadership of Peter Lordly Verigin. The people were split up into villages represented by the large apartment-like houses, where from about 35 to 40 members resided. Each village operated separately, with particular tasks assigned to its members. Where necessary, the men were sent out to earn money outside the community, while the rest including the older folk, women and children had to do the work at home. In charge of each village was an appointed “Elder.” All the members contributed to the community according to their capacity, and were doled out equal portions according to their needs. In other words, you put into the community what you earned or produced, and received in equal measure with the rest of the members, what you required. Concentration was on a pure and simple life, without luxuries.

A policy of austerity was in effect both for spiritual and economic reasons. During the wartime in 1914, children were not fed any bread and ate a thick noodle soup instead. The rest of the folk were on a frugal diet of mamalyha made of beans, peas and wheat cooked together. At the time the Community had food in abundance, but it was not indulged in out of compassion for the suffering by the rest of the world.

Housing

A regular .pattern persisted in the building of homes. The main floor of the two storey brick houses contained the large communal kitchen and social centre or living room; the bedrooms were upstairs. In the kitchen, a long table or two stood alongside the windows with a special table for the children. The stove was in about the centre of the room, and there would also be a brick Dutch oven. The living room was used for occasions like a marriage, prayer meetings, singing group, a funeral or for visitors. Adjacent to the large brick house, there was a U-shaped unit of one floor rooms. These provided room for the older folk to sleep in, as well as washing and storage facilities.

Doukhobor community home, Grand Forks, BC. British Columbia Archives C-01729.

Meals

For each large communal house, two women, interchanging weekly had to do the cooking, and the baking of the large round loaves of bread in the Dutch oven. Children ate at a separate table from the adults. Four persons ate out of the same bowl using wooden spoons. This may sound unsanitary, but the fact remains that in those years there were few illnesses among the people and they were very healthy.

After everyone sat down at the table, a hymn would be sung. After saying grace, everyone would eat quietly, without making a racket with the utensils or idle chatter.

The most well-known Doukhobor dish is borshch – a type of vegetable soup. Other dishes were rice soup; cereal made from wheat; cooked halooshki, (dumplings in soup); blintsi (a sort of pancake); vinigret (a salad of beets, apples, beans, dilled cucumbers and sauerkraut); kvas (grated cucumbers and green onions thinned with water); vegetables and fruit. Tomatoes and cucumbers (as well as cabbage for sauerkraut) were salted in big crocks for winter use. Bread was dried, (like crumpets) for eating with rice soup. The main beverage was a fruit juice made from dried apples, prunes and other fruit.

Prayer Meetings

Prayer meetings in the early years were held early in the morning (before breakfast) on Sundays, as well as on some other days. It was the custom then to attend prayer meetings attired in homemade linen clothes, and in the summer months barefoot. Persons entering the meeting greeted the congregation with the words: “Glory to God!” To which those gathered replied: “We glorify and thank God for His grace!” At the meeting the women stood on the right side and the men on the left; in the center between them stood a table on which bread, salt and water was placed. Each person recited a psalm standing before the table. After recitations three psalms were sung and the Lord’s Prayer was said, the end of which all present bowed touching the ground, and said that they bow to God, His Son, Christ and the Holy Ghost. There followed the singing of hymns and discussion on any important matter that happened to come up.

In later years with the coming of Peter P. Chistiakov Verigin, the form of the prayer meeting reverted back to that practiced by Doukhobors in Russia in times past, as follows: On entering the meeting hall, a person greeted those present with the words “Glorious God is praised”, and the congregation answered: “Great is the name of the Lord and His glory is throughout the world.” Some of the men, women as well as children recited psalms, after which the congregation sang psalms at which time the second man in the first row came up to the first man, they clasped each other’s hand and bowed to each other two times, then kissed each other and bowed once more, then the second man turned and bowed to the women and they bowed in reply. After a number of men performed this ritual, which denoted their reverence for the spirit of the divine life that is part of man, their forgiveness and love for each other, the women performed the same ritual of reverent bowing. This being accomplished, a man stepped out near the table and recited the Lord’s Prayer, at the conclusion of which he said: “Here we kneel in reverence to Father, Son and the Holy Ghost,” and the congregation bowed to the ground. The reciter then said: “Christ has arisen,” and the congregation answered: “In Truth He has arisen.” The second time they bowed to the ground they said: “Eternal memory to Witnesses of Truth.” The third time they bowed saying: “God grant the living good health, forgive us and strengthen us in Your ways.” After this a few hymns were sung and time was devoted to discussions on matters of social and spiritual significance.

Weddings

When a young couple decided to get married, the boy, along with his parents, went to the girl’s house to ask her parents for the hand of their daughter.

In the ceremony that followed, everyone read prayers and then someone would read the Lord’s Prayer. The parents gave the couple their blessing and wished them luck. Then the couple kissed both his and her parents and bowed to their feet.

Doukhobor women haying on community land, Grand Forks, BC, circa 1920. British Columbia Archives C-01721.

The wedding took place two or three days later, for there were no engagement parties or rings given. The bride gathered her belongings together with the bedding and tied them up in a bundle (there were no hope chests at that time).

On the wedding day, the groom, along with his parents, went on a horse and buggy after the bride and her parents. When they arrived at the groom’s place, everyone exchanged greetings and wished the couple luck. Only the 30 to 40 members who lived in the big house, where the lived, attended the wedding. The food served was the same as a Sunday dinner. There was borshch, plove, and atvar (a beverage made out of fruit). The clothes which the bride and groom wore were their best Sunday clothes.

Funerals

The dead were not taken to a mortician but were bathed and dressed at home. The coffin was also made at home. People came during the daytime as well as in the evening to share the grief with the mourning family. Prayers and psalms were sung in honour of the dead person. There were no dinner lunches served as there are now.

The dead were buried two and a half days after they died. On the next day the family and close relatives went to the grave to pay their respects to the dead. They sang hymns and other songs.

After a period of six weeks, the friends and relatives gathered once more at the grave in memory of the dead person. Once again they read prayers sang hymns. This ritual was repeated after a year was up.

Education

No special outfits were worn by the children when they went to school. Both boys and girls up to twelve years of age wore a dress-like garment. They wore no shoes and had nothing on their heads. The school age was limited to the age of 12 years, so very few children went to school; mostly boys.

Each district had a school to which the children had to walk. During the winter months, the children were taken on sledges pulled by horses.

The children were taught reading, writing, grammar and some arithmetic. They only went as far as grade five or six. Due to the fact that the children were always speaking Russian, and often had to stay away from school in order to help at home, their progress in English school was quite slow.

One of the first schools called “Carson School” was built close to where the Hill View Store is presently located. Later there was a school built at Fruktova.

At home the children were taught to read and write in Russian.

Skills and Crafts: The Process of Making Linen Cloth from Flax

The flax seeds were planted very closely together, in the Spring time. When the seeds were ripe, the whole plant was pulled out and tied into bundles. These bundles were set upright, in the sunny fields, so that they would dry thoroughly. Wooden clubs were used to thresh the flax so that all the seeds fell out.

Doukhobor children in flax field, Grand Forks, BC, circa 1920. British Columbia Archives C-01745.

The stocks were then soaked in water for about two weeks. When the stocks were saturated with water, they were put into bundles and once again dried in the sun. Then, the stocks were put into a block of wood (that had been hollowed out), and were threshed by a large wooden hammer to soften the cellulose. They were then put through home-made combs dividing the stock into thin fibres (by now, all the waste materials had fallen off). The thin fibres were put through a spinning wheel and put tightly on a wooden roll. After the yarn was taken off the wooden roll, it was put into a solution of hot water and flax seed in order to make the yarn slippery. It was wrung, pounded and hung out to dry. When it was dry, the yarns were separated and put on a home-made machine for weaving. There were about 30 yards in one weaving. The cloth was then ready for bleaching.

White ash (taken from burnt weeds and sunflower stems) was gathered and put into boiling water. After this solution stood for a while, it was strained through a canvas sheet. The cloth was placed in that solution and stayed there for two days. A thorough washing was given to the cloth after it was taken out of the solution; and it was placed in the sun to dry. When the cloth had dried, it was placed on a wooden roller used for ironing, and pounded with a flat stick which resembled a scrub board. Then the cloth was ready to be used for sewing.

After the sheep had been sheared, the wool was washed, dried and combed with home-made combs. It was then spun into a yarn on a spinning wheel. The yarn was placed in a paste made out of hot water and flour. After the yarn was dried, it was put on a home-made weaving machine. The cloth was washed with soap and water in a process of preshrinking. It could be dyed with different colours. The woolen yarn was also used to knit stockings, mittens and sweaters.

Other Skills and Handicrafts

The women busied themselves with other handicrafts such as embroidering, and crocheting various pieces. The men carved wooden spoons, salt and pepper shakers and various pieces of furniture. They also made spinning wheels as well as different of machines for weaving cloth. Harnesses were made out of leather, which was bought in bulk. There were shoemakers who made fine quality shoe of leather.

Conclusion

It seems proper to note that in October of 1924 the Doukhobor Community was bereaved by the tragic loss of Peter Lordly Verigin, who was killed in a deliberately set explosion of a passenger car in a C.P.R. train while on his way from Brilliant to Grand Forks. The explosion occurred just after the train left the station at Farron, B.C. He was an outstanding personality and gave leadership in the spiritual as well as the economic life of the Community, which deeply felt the loss of their revered leader. His place as the leader of the Doukhobors was taken by his son, Peter P. Chistiakov Verigin, who came to Canada in October, 1927 and who died in February, 1939.

Doukhobor farm near Grand Forks, BC, circa 1930. British Columbia Archives C-02659.

After it became evident that the lands and property of the Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood would be foreclosed by the companies holding mortgages, he re-organized the Community under the new name of the Union of Spiritual Communities of Christ, to which belong most of the Doukhobors living at present in Grand Forks. The name of Peter Petrovich Chistiakov Verigin is still revered by his followers.

The members of the Union of Spiritual Communities of Christ, while living on an individual basis are still favour of establishing a communal or co-operative way of life. At the present time, they have in Grand Forks a large cooperative store and a service garage under the name of Sunshine Valley Co-op Society.

This brings to a close this short summary of the history of the Doukhobor people in the Grand Forks and Boundary area.

View Grand Forks, British Columbia Doukhobor Villages, 1909-1939 in a larger map

Categories
Historical Stories and Articles

Pacifism and Anastasia’s Doukhobor Village

by John W. Friesen

Following the death of Peter “Lordly” Verigin in 1924, his companion Anastasia F. Holuboff (1885-1965) was recognized by several hundred Doukhobors as his successor. The majority of Community Doukhobors, however, proclaimed Verigin’s son Peter “Chistiakov” Verigin as their leader. Disappointed, Anastasia and her followers broke away from the Community and in 1926 moved to the Shouldice district of Alberta where they established a break-away village. The following article by John W. Friesen, reproduced by permission from Alberta History (41(1) 1993), recounts Anastasia’s communal experiment in social, geographical and economic isolation. A combination of factors, including leadership style, internal dissension, land shortages and crop failures led to the eventual dissolution of the village in 1943.

The Doukhobor belief in pacifism originates from a conviction that every creature of God has a right to life. Doukhobors are fundamentally Russian in origin, and their beginnings were formalized in 1785 when a Russian Orthodox Archbishop named Ambrosius, called them “Doukhobortsi” or “Spirit Wrestlers.” He argued that their protestations against the state church were tantamount to fighting against the Spirit of God. The Doukhobors adopted the name, insisting that their interpretation of a living faith required a constant “wrestling in the Spirit.” Their orally-perpetuated belief system evolved, rather than being formally articulated, and consisted of communalism, pacifism to the extent of being vegetarians, an hereditary system of selecting leadership, a complete rejection of the written word, and a rejection of all forms of institutionalized religion including the priesthood. Doukhobors believe that each individual has a “Divine Spark” within them which entitles them to equality in the community and a right to life.

Doukhobor origins in Canada go back to 1899 when 7,500 souls immigrated from Russia and settled on the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border west of Winnipeg. During this time Canada was actively recruiting immigrants through the office of Clifford Sifton, Minister of the Interior, and from 1890 to 1914, settlers from many parts of Europe and the United States took advantage of the generous invitation to receive title to free land. The Doukhobors established their first homes in the Kamsack-Yorkton district of Saskatchewan and built a series of 61 communal villages under one managing body. Four of the villages were temporary sites and 57 became functional. For a few years all went well, but the Canadian government became uneasy about the communal governance of the settlements and took steps to dismantle the organization.

Anastasia Holoboff (1885-1965). Photo courtesy Koozma J. Tarasoff.

After attacks by the Federal government and strong local community opposition to their communalism, the Doukhobors relocated to British Columbia in 1907. Their refusal to register communal property individually meant that their Saskatchewan lands were confiscated and assigned to incoming settlers. Their refusal cost them a total of 258,880 acres, of which 49,429 were cultivated. It was a boon for new immigrants to occupy lands already tilled, and in the frenzy of settlement no one paid much attention to Doukhobors.

As a token concession, the government made some of the lands available to the Doukhobors as a reserve, on the basis of fifteen acres per person. A total of 236 Doukhobors opted for individual land registration and thus became known as “Independent Doukhobors.” A smaller, more aggressive faction objected to their treatment and staged a public protest against the “militarism” of the government in the form of a march. Thereafter, they became known as the “Sons of Freedom.”

In British Columbia, Doukhobor life took on an entirely different format. Grain farming and cattle-raising were replaced by fruit-growing and the operation of sawmills, a brick factory and two jam factories. Some of the men worked for non-Doukhobor neighbours and contributed their earnings to the community – the Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood (CCUB) – through their leader, Peter V. Verigin. New homes were built comprising a total of 90 villages, each containing one or two large houses, each accommodating 30 to 50 people.

In 1915, an Alberta base was added to the CCUB. Verigin saw the advantage of establishing an Alberta “depot” to provide grain and flour to British Columbia members who in turn would furnish garden produce and other supplies to the Alberta farmers. He purchased 12,000 acres of farmland in the Cowley-Lundbreck area and placed three hundred people on the land. Verigin also supervised the building of a flour mill and two elevators.

The Alberta connection functioned effectively until the dissolution of the CCUB. There were occasional incidents of protest against the Alberta Doukhobors during the years following the First World War because of their pacifism, but for the most part there was little disruption of life in the community over such matters.

The CCUB was dismantled in 1938 due to a sudden and unprovoked bank foreclosure on the organization. Although the community had nearly $8 million worth of property, two business firms – National Trust and the Sun Life Assurance Company – held a series of demand notes worth four per cent of their total worth, or $319,276. The notes were called and the British Columbia Supreme Court allowed foreclosure action to commence. The way was then clear for the British Columbia government to take title to Doukhobor lands and properties. When the CCUB was dismantled, some lands were sold to Doukhobor adherents on a crop-share basis and the rest were liquidated to pay off the bank debt. The story of the foreclosure is a blot on Canadian history.

Residents of Anastasia’s village: Polly Verigin, Dunya Anutooshkin (seated) and Nastya Verigin, c. 1927.

On October 24, 1924, the revered leader of the CCUB, Peter the Lordly, died in a mysterious train explosion when he was travelling to Grand Forks. A much respected man, Peter the Lordly virtually ran the CCUB single-handedly, even though a board of trustees legally existed.

It is a Doukhobor custom that when a leader dies there is a six-week period of mourning. When the mourning is over the community reconvenes and a new leader is elected. After Peter the Lordly’s death, his longtime female companion, Anastasia Holuboff, wanted to be the next leader but she was defeated. Instead, the congregation chose Peter’s son, Peter Petrovich Verigin, who was living in Russia. He was subsequently contacted and moved to Canada to take over the CCUB. Anastasia was deeply offended; after all, it was she who had lived and travelled with Peter the Lordly for twenty years and she knew all of his teachings.

She reacted to the rejection by forming a breakaway group called “The Lordly Christian Community of Christian Brotherhood” and in 1926 she moved to Alberta. Anastasia purchased 1,120 acres of land near Shouldice and subsequently supervised the building of the first homes. From a small beginning, the village population eventually peaked at 165 souls with twenty-six separate homes on site.

From the very beginning, Anastasia’s village functioned quite differently from other Doukhobor settlements. Always there was an element of uncertainty about its stability and an atmosphere of mistrust prevailed. Administratively, Anastasia was never Peter Verigin’s equal, so she was constantly working to keep the community together. She lacked the dignity with which Verigin had carried himself, and she never gained the measure of respect that he had commanded.

Anastasia’s method of governance was to insist on respect from her villagers. On moving into the village, each resident was asked to sign a membership form with the following rules called, “Principal Points of the Doukhobor Religion”: Doukhobors do not have mortiferous firearms; do not kill animals for food; do not use intoxicating liquors; and do not smoke or chew tobacco.

Anastasia’s governance style revealed itself in numerous other day-to-day affairs as well. One former village resident suggested that when the first garden produce of the season was brought in, Anastasia insisted that she be the first to partake of it. She also saw herself as the principal spiritual resource for the village and personally took to teaching Doukhobor philosophy and community regulations to the children. She gathered her young charges together in the early hours of the morning and taught them to sing Doukhobor psalms and memorize the main tenets of Doukhobor ideology. Herself once a member of Peter Verigin’s travelling choirs, she placed considerable stress on music. She also decried materialism and militarism and originated a series of strict regulations in this regard.

This large barn served the whole community at Anastasia’s village. It was built in 1927 and is still in use.  Photo by Jonathan J. Kalmakoff.

She was known to mete out lengthy sermons to offenders who often escaped her diatribes simply by leaving the scene.

Following Peter the Lordly’s example, Anastasia originally purchased the farmlands for her settlement in her own name. Verigin said he would do this for the protection of the community when they first migrated to British Columbia, and true to his word, he did set up a board of directors for the CCUB and eventually turned all properties over to the organization. Anastasia also established a board of directors (consisting of three members) but she never signed the lands over to her community. Thus at her death there was a legal question about ownership. The actual village site and surrounding farmland were willed to her niece (recently deceased) who, along with her husband, maintained the village buildings and grounds to the present. Although resident in British Columbia, they spent summers at the village site to undertake maintenance work.

Anastasia’s board of directors was elected for one year terms and were primarily charged with looking after agricultural activities. Despite many attempts to live according to the spirit of brotherly love extolled by Doukhobors, there were frequent disputes (even fist-fights) among members of the village and Anastasia was not always able to successfully intervene. As a result there were frequent departures as people moved to more desirable places. When this happened, in most cases they forfeited their goods to the village and left with only the clothes on their backs. Some demanded a share of the goods and argued until some kind of settlement was made. This constant turmoil reflected badly on Anastasia’s abilities as leader and did little to maintain the morale of the membership or attract other Orthodox Doukhobors to the settlement. It also reflected poorly on a community allegedly bound by the principles of rationality which was to result in respect for one another by living in harmony. Despite this, the community became skilled at growing garden produce and contracted with members of the nearby Blackfoot Indian Reserve to trade these for coal supplies. They also obtained permission to do berry-picking on the reserve.

Doukhobor pacifism was internally put to the test when Anastasia appointed a close friend of hers, Wasyl (William) Androsoff, to run the village farm. The irritation caused by the appointment increased when Androsoff refused to move to the village. In addition, he and his brother, Ivan, also used community machinery to farm their own land. At William’s death, Ivan (also called John), took over farming operations until Anastasia’s passing. Her brother Michael is also reported to have helped with farming operations and as a reward Anastasia signed a quarter section of land over to him.

In some ways, Anastasia’s village was a communal experiment in isolation. It was an isolation from social interchange, and an isolation of economics and belief. In the first instance, village members were encouraged to have little to do with outsiders even though a certain amount of trade went on with neighbours. Also, when times were tough, Anastasia assigned certain men to work for neighbouring farmers. When work was done a strict reporting of activities away from the village to Anastasia was required. The philosophy of “them and us” was adhered to, which meant that everyone outside the village was considered an outsider – including other Doukhobors. Since Anastasia’s group was considered a renegade faction by mainline orthodoxy, there was an unspoken regulation about having too much to do with them. There were exchange visits between Anastasia’s people and those in the Alberta settlements near Lundbreck, but these were intermittent and basically social in nature.

Non-Doukhobor neighbours who still reside near the former village tell of sitting listening to Doukhobor singing emanating from the village. It was a beautiful and haunting sound, but carried a message of social distance in philosophy and practice. It was certainly difficult to operationalize the principle of loving one’s brother if social isolation was awarded such prime billing.

There is no indication that members of Anastasia’s village experienced public censure because of their pacifism during the period of the Second World War. On a national scale there were many Doukhobors who resisted participation in any alternative service program such as that yielded to by the Mennonites and Hutterites. Although some Doukhobor leaders in Saskatchewan tried to cooperate with the government push for alternative service, many young men resisted and at one time nearly 100 of them spent four months in prison in Prince Albert. In British Columbia, resistance was much more pronounced and the Sons of Freedom particularly gained press for staging public demonstrations. Inexperienced with this kind of upheaval, government officials tried to downplay the problem. Countless meetings were held and finally it was agreed that the Doukhobors should be disfranchised. On November 2, 1944, a form of taxation for Doukhobors was devised with monies derived therefrom going to the Red Cross. With the war nearly over, the proposal received endorsation by the majority of Doukhobors and additional conflict was defused. In evaluating the entire episode, one would have to praise government officials for their patience, dedication and long suffering in trying to accommodate Doukhobor beliefs.

Besides the question of the quality of administration in Anastasia’s village was the matter of institutional connection. With only limited social and economic ties to the local community, residents of the village also functioned with memories of having been forced to leave the membership of mainline orthodoxy when they sided with Anastasia after Peter the Lordly’s death. Combined with Anastasia’s inability to run a tight ship, this lack of institutional affiliation created an island community in an alien society and its demise was almost certain from the beginning. After all, who in Alberta, in a period of wartime, could really become concerned about the inner struggles of a remote pacifist, communal, renegade, Russian-derived group of people? Without vital connections, the experiment could not last.

When the Doukhobors first came to Canada they were seen as a very appealing kind of immigrant. They knew how to farm, they promised not to engage in any acts of civil disobedience, and they asked for little from the Canadian people. As time went on, however, a very negative image of Doukhobors evolved, partially brought on by the “leave us alone” philosophy of the Doukhobors themselves and Canadian suspicions of their pacifist, communal lifestyle. It did not help that the militant Sons of Freedom faction which originated after the seizure of Saskatchewan lands received so much publicity. In their zeal to discourage a growing materialism among their orthodox counterparts they sometimes engaged in acts of civil disobedience and violence to make a point. They set fire to buildings to illustrate the fleeting security of material goods. They burned schools in order to express their disdain for public education which they saw as part of the process of yielding to the Canadian value system of materialism, consumerism and militarism.

Undoubtedly the apparent inconsistency between what was promulgated as pacifist ideology, and demonstrated in acts of aggression (even if only against one’s own colleagues), drew little public support for the Doukhobor cause. An even more isolated and eccentric experiment (such as Anastasia’s village), would almost certainly be bypassed or stretch Canadian tolerance to its very limits.

Sources contend that the village never formally died; instead it simply dwindled away. By 1945, only Anastasia and her companion, Fedosia Verigin, remained on site. They lived alone there until 1960 when they moved to Calgary and spent their summers at the site. Anastasia died on November 24, 1965, and Fedosia on October 26, 1981. They are buried side by side in the cemetery located at the north end of the village.

Anastasia’s original house (and attached bath house). The structure is still standing.  Photo by Jonathan J. Kalmakoff.

Physical reminders of the former village structure are numerous and include Anastasia’s original house (and attached bath-house), her newer home (built in the 1950s), a big barn and grain bin, the prayer home, and a several other buildings. Memories of life in the village also remain, locked in the inner recesses of the hearts of older Doukhobors who were once a part of this experience.

About the Author

John W. Friesen is an ordained clergyman of the United Church of Canada. He is Minister of Morley United Church near Calgary, Alberta. He also holds a joint appointment as Professor in the Faculty of Education and the Faculty of Communication and Culture at the University of Calgary. He has published several articles on the Doukhobors. His book with Michael M. Verigin, The Community Doukhobors, A People in Transition (Borealis Press, 1996) is a detailed examination of the history of the Doukhobors in Alberta.

Categories
Historical Stories and Articles

Doukhobors in Alberta

by Michael M. Verigin

The following is an excerpt from an address given by Michael M. Verigin at the Doukhobor Centennial Celebration held in Calgary, Alberta on April 3, 1999. It contains an excellent historic summary of the Doukhobor settlement in Alberta. Reproduced from the pages of ISKRA magazine, No. 1875 (Grand Forks: U.S.C.C., June 16, 1999

Dear Brothers & Sisters, Boys and Girls:

As I stand here before you today, and see so many of our Brethren who had to travel so many miles from far away, from Saskatchewan and British Columbia, to come here to Calgary, I couldn’t help but think, how much different everything would have been, if things had turned out as planned 100 years ago.

Before moving to Canada from Russia, the Doukhobors first sent delegates to look at suitable land and location. Two delegates came, Ivan Ivin and Peter Makortoff, with their wives and children, and (to assist them with the inspection of lands) Prince Dmitry Hilkoff and Aylmer Maude, arriving in Ottawa on September 12, 1898.

The first locality inspected was near Edmonton. A most promising location was found not far from Beaver Hill Lake, 276,480 acres or 12 townships of 36 square miles each, where the whole Doukhobor community could have been settled. But after returning to Ottawa to finalize the plans, these arrangements were upset and the Doukhobors were not allowed to settled here in Alberta and had to look for land elsewhere. As we all know now, they settled in Saskatchewan, and after the land loss in 1907, more than half moved into the Interior of British Columbia.

Prior to acquiring lands in British Columbia, Peter Lordly Verigin, in July of 1907, inspected lands in southern Alberta, especially in the vicinity of Lethbridge and Raymond, where he made inquiries into the various processes connected with the sugar beet industry.

In 1911, the census reported that there were 45 Doukhobors in Alberta. These were men who’d come from Saskatchewan to break prairie sod with oxen, for a British farming company near Suffield. In 1912, again about 100 workers came to work on Lake McGregor Dam near Milo.

In the summer of 1915, the first land was bought for permanent settlement, in the Cowley/Lundbreck area of south-western Alberta. Additional land was bought in the vicinity, in 1916 and 1917 and, at its peak, the CCUB in Alberta had close to 13,500 acres, with 300 members living in 13 small settlements (Bogatoi Rodnik, Bozhiya Milost, Bozhiya Selo, Gradovaya Dolina, Krasivaya Dolina, Sibir, Stupnikovo Selo, etc).  

Doukhobor Community Flour Mill, Lundbreck, Alberta c. 1916.

They soon built a large elevator in Cowley, and elevator and a flour mill in Lundbreck. They were raising over 300 head of horses, 9 of which were pedigreed mares, 7 purebred Percheron stallions, one of which was valued at $5,000. Nearly 400 head of shorthorn cattle and 5 purebred bulls. Every year, the Community threshed close to 100,000 bushels of grain.

In 1917, Peter Lordly Verigin rented for the CCUB, three sections of land from James McGregor, near Queenstown, in the Vulcan area, on a crop share basis. Since there were no grain elevators nearby, grain had to be hauled to Cluny, a distance of nearly 15 miles, where the nearest post office was located. After the tragic death of Peter Verigin in 1924, this land was then rented by Paul Planidin and sons for a short while and eventually bought by them.

In 1926, 1 3/4 sections of land was bought by Anastasia Holoboff, or Anastasia Lord’s as she was more commonly known, and her followers, near Shouldice, also in the Vulcan area. The settlement was known as the Lordly Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood, and was independent of all other Doukhobor villages in western Canada. The village consisted of 26 homes constructed in keeping with the pattern used in Russia and Saskatchewan, a main street with houses on both sides. On the south side, the far end of the street, was a large Prayer Home. Nearby was a spring, which supplied water for all the village needs, and was also piped to the far north end, to a CPR water tower and railway siding, which was named “Anastasia” in honour of Anastasia Lords. Here too, close by, was the village cemetery, and on the north-west side a large horse barn and blacksmith shop. On the north-end, was the school, with grades from 1 to 8.

The village had a population of 165 members who were involved in farming. And although this was choice farm land, there was an insufficient amount of it owned by the community, and it became necessary for many members to work outside the village to supplement their income.

In the mid 1920’s, at about the same time as the communal settlement of Anastasia Lords was being established, other Doukhobor settlers, mainly from Saskatchewan, were moving into the area and setting up independent farms. In a few short years, there were as many independent Doukhobors living in the area, mainly near Shouldice, Queenstown, Mossleigh and Arrowwood, as there were in the communal village.

The census reports indicate that in 1931 there was a total of 786 Doukhobors reported for Alberta, 297 in the Cowley/Lundbreck area, 391 in the Mossleigh/Shouldice area, and 98 in other parts of the province.

In 1938, because of a debt of less than 4% of the total value of the CCUB in the three western provinces, the mortgage companies foreclosed, and the communal enterprise of the Doukhobors came to an end. The Shouldice colony too, with shortage of land and several poor crop years, came to an end in the mid 1940’s. Those who remained, and did not move away, bought farms individually in the area.

Anastasia’s village, Shouldice district, Alberta, 1938.  Glenbow Archives PA-3563-3.

In 1953, the Doukhobors in the Shouldice, Mossleigh and Arrowwood locality built a Prayer Home near Mossleigh and registered their society as the United Doukhobors of Mossleigh and District. In the same year, the Doukhobors of Cowley and Lundbreck also began building a new Prayer Home at Lundbreck, which they registered as the United Doukhobors of Alberta, Cowley-Lundbreck.

Today, there are very few Doukhobors living in these two areas, as very few of the descendents of these original settlers remained in farming. The majority chose white collar professions and left for the cities. The greatest concentration of Doukhobors in this province is in this city, Calgary. There is also a considerable number in Edmonton and Lethbridge and, no doubt, some in practically every town in this province.

This year, the Doukhobors are commemorating 100 years since their arrival from Russia to Canada. Many Centennial celebrations will be taking place in Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. This celebration here today, is the first in Alberta, and we are very pleased that so many have come to join us. Later in the year, we hope to have a commemorative gathering in the Shouldice-Arrowwood area and at Cowley-Lundbreck.

Brothers and Sister, Boys and Girls: In this very historical year for our Doukhobors people, let us all try our very best to create more unity amongst ourselves, let us forget our petty differences, if we have any, and by applying the Golden Rule in our everyday life, of loving thy neighbour and Toil and Peaceful Life, with God’s help, we will make this 1999 Centennial year, a year that we, our neighbours, our children and grandchildren will be proud to remember in the years to come.

Michael M. Verigin
Calgary, Alberta
April 3, 1999 

Categories
Historical Stories and Articles

The Doukhobors in 1904

by Patricia L. McCormick

The early years of Doukhobor settlement in Canada were turbulent and emotional.  But by 1904, much of the dissension and disorder of the early years, caused by lack of leadership, the fear of governmental interference and the activities of radicals within the sect had been replaced by a firm sense of purpose under the leadership of Peter “Lordly” Verigin.  The following article by Patricia L. McCormick, reproduced from Saskatchewan History (31, 1978, No. 1) outlines how in 1904, under Verigin’s leadership, the traditional Doukhobor qualities of thrift, industry, self-discipline and hospitality were concentrated on building a thriving community with good and modem equipment and enough stock and necessities to give them hope for a more comfortable life in the villages and an economic surplus for the community as a whole. By the end of 1904, however, this spirit of hope was again lost.

In 1899, over 7000 Doukhobor settlers arrived in Canada and travelled overland to the Districts of Assiniboia and Saskatchewan. The Doukhobors had been living in exile in the Caucasus for over half a century, but renewed political harassment and religious intolerance prompted them once again to seek a new home. Canadian officials were at the same time anxious to settle the vast prairie with experienced farmers, and quickly acceded to the Doukhobors request for reserved land, the right to live in villages and exemption from military duty. These concessions to the Doukhobors were similar to the terms granted to the Mennonites when they formed their reserves in Manitoba in 1874 and 1876, and in Saskatchewan in 1895.

The four boatloads of Doukhobors which arrived in Canada in the spring and summer of 1899 were directed to three separate reserves: the North Colony or Thunder Hill Reserve; the South Colony, with its Devil’s Lake annex to the west; and the distant Prince Albert or Saskatchewan Reserve. The North and South Reserves were both situated in the Yorkton area, and they came to form the core of Doukhobor settlement in the Territories.

The first group of settlers to arrive in the North-West travelled to the Thunder Hill or North Colony, and settled mainly near the Swan River valley. These people came from the Wet Mountains in the Caucasus. They were poor and their fares to Canada had been subsidized by the federal government. The second boatload of Doukhobors came from the Elizavetpol and Kars regions of the Caucasus. They settled in the South Colony, particularly in the Devil’s Lake annex. These settlers were relatively prosperous; they brought many of their belongings from the Caucasus, and most of them paid their own fares. The third boatload, however, brought to Canada Doukhobors who had already spent a distressing year in Cyprus, due to an ill-advised re-settlement scheme. These families, who were destitute and in poor health, settled in the main South Colony. In July 1899, the last group, made up of well-to-do Kars Doukhobors, arrived in the Canadian west. They were directed to the Prince Albert Reserve, situated along the banks of the North Saskatchewan River between the Elbow and Blame Lake. The geographical isolation of this colony from the main body of Doukhobors in the Yorkton area emphasized, from the very beginning, their desire for cultural and spiritual independence.

When the Doukhobors started to organize their new settlements, they adhered rigorously to instructions issued by Peter Verigin from exile in Siberia. They were to establish small villages composed of 40 families, and situated two to four miles apart; maintain communal production and distribution of all goods; try to keep self-sufficient and isolated from other groups; and, in their personal habits, be abstemious and rigidly vegetarian. To begin with, most of his disciples conformed to these strictures, but there was a rapid falling off of enthusiasm. As Maude noted:

Now in Canada, the time had come to live a ‘Christian’ life, and to show the advantages of communism over individualism. The various forms their attempt took, and the continual drift from communism towards individualism that occurred as a result of practical experience, until Verigin arrived and established a communist despotism based partly on moral coercion, furnish an interesting study.

It is not surprising, given the origins of the various groups, that the colonies which held most tenaciously to a communistic form of life were the main South Colony and the Thunder Hill or North Colony, where the poorer Doukhobors lived. Most villages attempted various compromises between the two extremes. However, two settlements, the Devil’s Lake annex of the South Colony and the Prince Albert colony, showed rampant individualism. Herbert Archer, a Quaker, estimated in August 1900 that in the Prince Albert colony only one village in ten was communistic.

When Peter Verigin arrived in the Yorkton colonies in December 1902, his immediate objective was to crush the individualistic tendencies of the Doukhobors and to re-impose communism on the more recalcitrant communities by moral and economic force. His success was dramatic. Most villages returned to a communistic organization, although pockets of disaffection with Verigin’s rule remained in the Prince Albert and Devil’s Lake colonies. When Mavor visited the colonies in 1904, at a time when defections from communal village life were few, he estimated that non-community Doukhobors numbered only one-fifth of the total.

Verigin, nonetheless, decided to cut his losses and early in 1904, he concentrated his attention on the South and Thunder Hill colonies where the “truest” Doukhobors lived. It was there that he demonstrated his flair for organization and his shrewdness in business and financial matters. Under the strict control of the Committee of three, made up of Verigin, Zibarov and Planidin, all aspects of the Yorkton colonies were supervised, and the economy was shored up by keen management.

In the accounts for 1903, presented at Nadezhda in the South Colony on February 28, 1904, Verigin itemized his purchases: 4 portable steam engines and 2 traction engines with threshing machines; 2 saw mills (to be driven by the steam engines); 50 binders; 32 mowers; 45 disc harrows; 20 seeders; 16 wagons; 109 ploughs; 234 sections of harrows; 12 fanning mills; and 152 sleighs. In addition to the equipment, Verigin also bought 370 horses for $36,765.00 and sheep for $1,461.00.

Although one of the avowed aims of the community was self-sufficiency, it is evident from the accounts that many goods still needed to be imported, either from Yorkton or Winnipeg. Almost $30,000 was spent on dry goods, and wheat, oats and flour cost the colonies $9,720. Other bulk items, such as leather goods, salt, coal oil, glass, sugar, tea, wool and soap were also purchased, although there was some debate at the meeting that they should abstain from such luxuries as tea and sugar in 1904.

Doukhobors plowing, North Colony, 1905.  Library and Archives Canada A021179.

The Doukhobors, then, started the year 1904 with firm leadership, good and modem equipment and enough stock and necessities to give them hope for a more comfortable life in the villages and an economic surplus for the community as a whole. And, according to the minutes of the meeting, Verigin was deeply preoccupied with plans for future improvements and purchases. The Doukhobors resolved to set up a brickyard so that the log and sod houses might be replaced by brick structures. Verigin proposed to buy a hundred milk cows, more seed drills and 2000 puds (i.e. a traditional unit of weight in Russia equal to 16.38 kg) of wool for homespun cloth. He wanted to construct a new saw mill for each of the North and South colonies and to build a large warehouse near Verigin on the new main line of the Canadian Northern Railway. The Doukhobors also decided to build their own roads in the future and to permit no schools on the reserves unless they themselves wished to establish them.

Although ambitious, these plans turned out to be realistic. In 1904 a brick-making machine was bought and set up near good clay in section 26, township 35, range 30, W.I. A hundred purebred Ayrshire cattle were purchased so that the Doukhobors might vary their vegetarian diet with more dairy products. In the summer they bought a steam-plough, and Mavor reported that it was used on the reserve that autumn. In July 1904, C. W. Speers, an official of the Department of the Interior, observed that there were ten miles of graded road in the Yorkton district reserves and 20,000 acres of crop “looking excellent”. He also stated that:

They intend to cultivate a large area next to the railway and go extensively into wheat-raising … They have every material want supplied and excellent equipment for their work in their district. There is an air of prosperity among the people and great promise for the present year.

When the 1904 crop was finally in, the Doukhobors enjoyed for the first time in Canada a small grain surplus. The statistics for the Yorkton reserves were as follows:

  South Colony Devil’s Lake Annex North Colony
wheat 40,261 bushels 10,317 bushels 17,085 bushels
oats 49,948 bushels 12,131 bushels 16,569 bushels
barley 23,396 bushels 5,646 bushels 10,673 bushels
flax 3,584 bushels 895 bushels 975 bushels

In a letter to Alex Moffat, dated January 17, 1905, however, Verigin lamented the fact that the Doukhobors were unable to sell their wheat, which they offered at 85 cents to 40 cents a bushel, depending on the grade. And of the 17,000 pounds of seneca root gathered by the women of the reserves in 1904, only 4,000 pounds had been sold for the small sum of $2,600. This letter underlines the precarious financial position that confronted Verigin. His attempt at deficit financing depended on a great increase in the production of grains and the sale of grains and the sale of agricultural surpluses outside the reserves. At this stage he was helped by the money brought into the colonies by men who worked as navvies grading railways, as mill-hands and as harvesters on neighboring farms. But, as Mavor cautioned in his Report, “It is clear that when external earnings diminish, as after the construction of the railways they must, the exports will have to be increased, or their external purchases diminished.”

The population of the three Doukhobor colonies in 1904, according to Mavor, was between 8,000 and 8,500. Most of the Doukhobors lived in villages, and each village accommodated an average of 40 families or 200 persons. Not surprisingly, though, the sizes of the villages varied. In a list of villages in the Yorkton reserves drawn up by C. W. Speers, only 7 of the 45 villages conformed to the ideal size. In the Prince Albert colony the largest village was Spasovka with 190 inhabitants; the smallest of the 13 villages was Uspenie with 65 inhabitants. The average population for the 13 villages in the Prince Albert reserve was only 115, but there the Doukhobors were allowed to settle only on even-numbered sections, and their density was thus lower than in the Yorkton reserves where they had been granted both odd- and even-numbered sections.

The villages in the Doukhobor reserves were laid out in the Strassendorf pattern, so familiar then in the Mennonite settlements, with a wide central street lined with shade trees and houses aligned perpendicular to the street. A visitor to the South Colony in October 1904 brought back a detailed description of a Doukhobor village and the interior of a Doukhobor house:

The houses of this village were all built of small logs, roofed with poles and sod. They were neatly plastered with clay, and I was told that this work was done by the ‘girls’. Some of the buildings were whitewashed, and then looked very well. All the houses were set back fifty or so [feet] from the fence bounding the road, but these spaces were not used as gardens, though perhaps that was the intention.

When the visitor entered a Doukhobor house, he found everything “spotlessly clean”. The entry room was bare of furniture. The living room measured approximately twenty feet square, and in the middle of it was a post which supported the roof. The log walls and roof poles were plastered with clay.

The floor was also of clay mixed with straw, and perfectly level and smooth. The big clay box-stove was built in one comer, but the door for feeding the wood into it was in the other room… Around three sides ran a bench – one side very wide, forming a bedstead on which two beds were made up covered with patchwork quilts… Above the bench, half way to the ceiling, the wall was covered with newspapers.

In the Yorkton reserves the major departure from the existing Mennonite model of village settlement was the central location of communal facilities such as granaries, stables and, in some cases, prayer homes. In contrast to the individual houses, these buildings were usually aligned parallel to the central street and situated on larger lots. In October 1904, the visitor observed the men of the village thatching the barn roof, which projected over the ends of the structure by five or six feet. The bam itself was built of logs and the exterior plastered with clay. It was set back 200 yards from the road, and the large stable had room for nine teams.

I was told that there were eight teams in the village, which was a small one of only thirty-five families. All the animals were in splendid condition, showing good care. They were of no one breed, but all large and shapely, good general purpose horses.

James Mavor noted another characteristic structure of Doukhobor villages, small bath houses, or saunas, built behind the homes.

In the Prince Albert or Saskatchewan colony many Doukhobors farmed individually on their own quarter-section. Where the farmers lived in villages and farmed individually, there was no sharing of common implements, nor was the crop divided up according to need. Their independence was also reflected in their houses. They adopted the traditional house-bam combination, a one-story structure aligned perpendicular to the central street. In addition to his own house and stable, each farmer had a granary on his own property. As a result, there were few communal buildings in the Prince Albert villages, and no prayer homes.

Village of Vosnesenya, North Colony, c. 1904.  Library and Archives Canada C-000683.

Sgt. Major Schoof, who visited two Doukhobor villages in the Saskatchewan reserve in June 1904 remarked, “Their houses are so perfectly weather tight and withal thoroughly clean,” and added that the gardens were “flourishing with all kinds of vegetables” and that “He enjoyed the luxury of a Turkish bath, one of which is built in each village with a competent assistant in attendance.”

In many ways the village life was attractive and admirably suited to the rigors of pioneer life on the prairies. The needs of the old or the sick were always taken care of by close neighbours and by the communal distribution of goods and produce. Mavor described, somewhat romantically, a summer scene in a Doukhobor village.

Men and women worked in the fields together, and they adhered to the pleasant Russian custom of marching in groups from the village to the scene of their labour, singing as they went. The earliest risers began to patrol the village street singing a hymn to the rising sun, and their voices aroused the others. When the band was completed, the workers marched away, their voices gradually becoming more distant. They returned in the evening in the same manner.

Even though 1904 was probably one of the more constructive years in Doukhobor history, there were portents of future confrontations with the federal government and of strong dissension within the community itself. Early in 1904 Peter Verigin started to prepare for some of the problems which were to emerge from the Department of the Interior’s inconsistent interpretations of the Homestead regulations as they pertained to the Doukhobors. In March or April, Verigin bought 13 square miles of land from a land company for $10,000, and three quarter-sections of partly improved land for $360.

His seeming prescience was confirmed by government action on December 15, 1904. In flagrant disregard of promises given to the Doukhobors by Sifton, the government served notice that only 180,000 acres of the 722,000 acres in the reserves had been legally taken up, and that the balance would subsequently be disposed of by the government to new settlers. The Saskatchewan Herald reported that the land office in Battleford was “besieged” when the Prince Albert Doukhobor reserve was opened up: “Some 60 entries were made, several of the applicants having waited outside the office several hours in order to put in their claim.”

With the extension of the Canadian Northern line past Buchanan, in the Devil’s Lake annex, in the autumn of 1904, the Assiniboia colonists also began to feel hostility and public pressure from the new settlers pouring into the area. The isolation the Doukhobors had sought and cultivated was irretrievably lost. This external pressure only exacerbated the resentment building within the communities of the so-called “true” Doukhobors for their more independently minded brothers. These they ostracized from the community and called “No-Doukhobors”. Early in 1905 Verigin urged all his loyal followers in the Prince Albert colony to come to the Yorkton reserves. The siege mentality which characterized the Doukhobor settlements on the prairies for the next three years was just beginning.

The history of Doukhobor settlement in the North-West was turbulent and emotional. But by 1904 much of the dissension and disorder of the early years, caused by lack of leadership, the fear of governmental interference and the activities of radicals within the sect had been replaced by a firm sense of purpose. There were, of course, occasional outbursts of frustration and fanaticism, but the years 1903-1904 represented a time of relative order and harmony in the colonies.

Under Verigin’s leadership all the traditional Doukhobor qualities of thrift, industry, self-discipline and hospitality were concentrated on building a thriving community. James Mavor’s observation in the spring of 1904 was that: “The people were in good spirits, and … adjusting themselves cheerfully to the country and the climate.” By the end of 1904 that spirit of optimism was again lost.

This article originally appeared in the pages of Saskatchewan History, an award-winning magazine dedicated to encouraging both readers and writers to explore the province’s history. Published by the Saskatchewan Archives since 1948, it is the pre-eminent source of information and narration about Saskatchewan’s unique heritage.  For more information, visit Saskatchewan History online at: http://www.saskarchives.com/web/history.html.

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