SASKATCHEWAN AND ITS PEOPLE
1924

         
PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE EARLY EUROPEAN IMMIGRANT.  
    
DOUKHOBORS.


vated and the Doukhobors became great producers. They again had horses
and cattle, all of good quality and kept in fine condition, but they were
seriously handicapped when they had on principle, to abandon their home-
steads. As previously stated a good many deserted the community and
some of the villages had to be abandoned, as the "Independents" who had
taken up their individual homesteads built on their farms.
Veregin, desiring to retain his supremacy, now arranged with the
British Columbia Government for fruit and farm lands, and sent out an
advance party, and after this party had erected houses and planted trees
Veregin moved a large number of the Doukhobors to B. C.
He had lived in great state near Veregin. He had a fine large house,
with all modern conveniences including a Turkish bath.  He generally
drove about with his secretary and three or four handmaidens in a swell
democrat with four to six horses, acknowledging the bows of his subjects
with great dignity. I have no doubt that he now has his limousine of the
best; but the people are not as much in awe of him in these later years.
He has however, great power yet, and being a very able man and really
devoted to the welfare of the Doukhobors as long as they recognize him
as their Lord and Master, there can be no doubt he has done good service.
It is a noteworthy fact that no Community Doukhobor has ever been
brought before the Courts of Justice. I believe the Doukhobors are quite
sincere, and have a practical belief in the Brotherhood of Man, which
belief they live up to.
During the war they, of course, took no part in it, but they sent at
least one carload of jam from British Columbia for the Canadian soldiers
and if I remember correctly they presented several carloads of wheat from
their farms in Saskatchewan.
I remember a couple of incidents which will give some insight into
the character of this peculiar people.  Driving from Pelly to Saltcoats
with my foreman (I was engineering a steel bridge across the Assiniboine
River) I put up at a Doukhobor village where we got the best of treat-
ment. Early in the morning I visited the stable, and found my foreman
surrounded by several young Doukhobor inquisitors. I overheard the fol-
lowing, but missed what had been said previously.
Doukhobor to foreman: Tobacco smoke you" "Yes". Oh, bad, ver' bad.
Whiskey drink you" "Yes". "Oh, ver' ver' bad"; and they all scampered
away doubtless under the impression that we natives were a very bad
lot. They had given us of their best; everything was clean and tidy and
they had made us very comfortable, yet on our offering them money they
as usual shook their heads and said with smiles "All brothers".  I how-
ever left a dollar or so where they could find it.
The other incident was of a different nature. The Two Creek Village
was some twelve or fourteen miles north of the Galician settlement which
the Austrian Consul named after myself.  The trail to Langenburg, an-
other twenty-five miles, passed by a place of a Galician who was partly
blind, and not able to go out to work. He had however a very energetic
wife who went out to work, and earned enough to keep the pot boiling.



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