Innholdsfortegnelse for 57.1 Spring 2024 i British Columbia History

Jonathan J. Kalmakoff, guest editor of this issue, is the creator of doukhobor.org, a website dedicated to sharing stories about Doukhobor culture and history, and making research materials more accessible. We are pleased that he was able to spend time with us to talk about how his website came to be and about future projects that are underway behind the scenes. Aimee Greenaway (AG) How long have you been researching Doukhobor history? Jon Kalmakoff (JK) I have been seriously researching Doukhobor history for 25 years now, since graduating from the University of Saskatchewan in 1998. AG What inspired you to create the Doukhobor Heritage website? JK I have always been interested in history. I can recall as a child of eight years old conducting “interviews” with my Doukhobor grandparents and great-grandparents, asking…

The individual data from Canada's 1931 census, released on June 1, 2023, open new possibilities for understanding British Columbian society between the two world wars. We can learn about where people came from (most non-Indigenous adults in BC were not born in the province); the sizes and estimated values of their homes; what they did for a living; and whether they were or had recently been unemployed. Local history is certainly enriched by this evidence.1 The following essay draws mainly on this newly opened source to present a social profile of one region in BC's Interior in the early 1930s—the Kootenay village of Creston and the countryside nearby, numbering almost 1,500 named individuals.2 The village of Creston, incorporated in 1924, had a population of some 710 named people living in…

Many people can relate to the concept of having European ancestors who made sacrifices so that their children and grandchildren may live a more privileged life as Canadian settlers. As new generations succeed them, these stories can blur with time, be taken for granted, and appear abstract aside from a photograph or a few possessions of said ancestor(s). My ethnicity is entirely rooted as a Doukhobor settler: the ethno-religious group of Christian pacifists composed primarily of Slavic origin who immigrated to Canada in the beginning of the twentieth century. The deep homogenization of my heritage manifested itself in my life through traditional foods, the Russian spoken in my grandparents’ house, and the stories of what my relatives did to survive once settled in Canada. My mother's first home was within…

I am a Doukhobor. I was born in Grand Forks in 1940 and raised there. My paternal grandfather came to Canada in 1899, at the age of 12, aboard the SS Lake Huron with Doukhobors from Russia. The Doukhobors were pacifists and left Russia because of religious persecution. When I was born, Grand Forks had a large Doukhobor population, with communal villages on the hillsides of West Grand Forks. Their big brick buildings dotted the countryside. While my mother was raised in one of the villages, my father's family had a general store in West Grand Forks. I had the best of both worlds. There was a dignity and peaceful grace about the elders of that first generation in Canada, and an unparalleled resilience and fortitude. Their lives were not…

Our teachings and ceremonies—rights, regalia, songs, prayers—are not new. They are at least 15 to 20 generations old. They are put in place to cleanse, to heal, to strengthen, and to remind young people that we are related to all living things, and that we need to continue to move together, to protect each other, and to know we have always belonged. Our old people expected us to use their teachings “long after we are gone,” as told by Elder Anderson Tommy in the 1970s. In Coast Salish culture, teachings are passed down from generation to generation by Sulsalewh/Elders. I began working with Snuneymuxw Sulsalewh/Elders and youth in the mid-1970s. At that time, our public school system was amid “our sad winter,” an insightful phrase Chief Dan George (Tsleil-Waututh) used…

The Trail Historical Society was organized in 1953 when a small group of local history buffs met at Elsie Turnbull's home to discuss ways and means to protect and preserve our community's history. There was a consensus that there was interest in the City's history and a society was formed as a branch of the BC Historical Association (now the BC Historical Federation). In 1977 a museum was established. In 1978 their name was changed to the Trail Historical Society. In 2017, the City of Trail assumed responsibility for the management and staff of the Trail Museum & Archives. The Trail Historical Society remains the owner and steward of all collections and staff collaborates on all issues related to the collections, exhibits, and programming in the new facility. (Source: Trail…

1 Fossil Feat Move over Pacific dogwood and Stellar's jay—make room for a new provincial symbol. A fossilized marine reptile that lived 80 million years ago, when BC was mostly underwater, is now the province's official fossil emblem. The fossilized remains of an elasmosaur were discovered by Mike Trask and his daughter Heather while exploring the shoreline of the Puntledge River in 1988. The 12-metre-long beast (with very sharp teeth) now receives visitors at the Courtenay and District Museum and Palaeontology Centre, where a second specimen, discovered in 2020, is also housed. An online vote for an official fossil emblem was launched in 2018 by the province and BC Paleontological Alliance. The Puntledge elasmosaur faced some tough competition that included an ancestor of the Pacific salmon and an ancient crab. Deborah…

In the early twentieth century, the Doukhobors established a vast communal fruit-growing enterprise at Grand Forks. Not only did these pacifist agriculturalists maintain extensive, attractive, and productive orchards, they were also at the forefront of local fruit processing development. The following article examines one such development—the impressive but short-lived Kootenay-Columbia Preserving Works, a jam factory and cannery at Grand Forks—its establishment and operation, as well as the questions that remain regarding its mysterious and untimely demise. Orchard development Between 1909 and 1912, Peter V. Verigin on behalf of the Doukhobor Society purchased 4,182 acres of land west of Grand Forks.1 During this time, 713 Doukhobors resettled there from Saskatchewan, constructed villages, and proceeded to develop the land for large-scale fruit growing.2 While a small acreage was already under mature orchard,3…

Peter Vasil'evich “Lordly” Verigin Born in 1859 in Russia, Peter Vasil'evich Verigin assumed leadership of Doukhobors in the Caucasus in 1886. Exiled to North Russia and Siberia for 16 years, he rejoined his followers in Canada in 1902. After a substantial loss of homestead lands in Saskatchewan in 1907, he led over 6,000 of his followers to the West Kootenay and Boundary regions of British Columbia from 1908–1913, where they established his utopian vision of the Doukhobor community as the “Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood” (CCUB) on purchased lands. He died in a mysterious train explosion near Farron, BC, in 1924. British Columbia Wilderness Between 1908 and 1913, the CCUB purchased 10,600 acres of heavily forested land in the Kootenay region, with many trees three to five feet in diameter…

Anyone who has spent hours ensconced in historical documents and archives likely will have experienced the disappointments and delights of finding something not looked for. Those mixed emotions have twice been mine in connection with the First World War internment camp located at Morrissey, near Fernie. On the first occasion—a quarter of a century ago—I was surprised to learn of the camp's very existence when I was looking into the history of mines abandoned by the Crow's Nest Pass Coal Company long ago. My second Morrissey surprise is much more recent. One day, Lorne Hammond of the Royal British Columbia Museum told me that an album of photographs left by a guard at the Morrissey internment camp was held at the Ashton Armoury Museum, in Victoria. Knowing how few photographs…