PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE EARLY EUROPEAN IMMIGRANT.
DOUKHOBORS.
Large log buildings were erected as depots between Yorkton and Pelly
for the use of the immigrants as they were moved out to their different
reservations. The Doukhobors were a big, stolid lot of people, vegetarians
who would not kill anything or eat even eggs, claiming that eggs were
embryo "chickens." Neither would they use butter or grease, claiming
that the milk and cream were intended for the calves, and grease could
be got from dead animals; yet notwithstanding all this they were a very
sturdy and hardy lot of workers. Finally they all arrived and were settled
in villages.
Their houses and buildings were well built of logs and clay, a fact that
is partly accounted for by many of the Doukhobors being skilled me-
chanics. The houses in the villages were in double rows with stables, etc.,
behind, and wide streets between the rows. The buildings were white-
washed, and there were net fences; trees were planted in front of the
houses and there were good gardens. Of course this was not done all at
once. The villages were connected with good roads, many miles in length;
and the Doukhobors were the first to have telephones between the villages,
long distances apart of course, but built, owned and operated by them-
selves.
Their system of government consisted in electing three councillors in
each village who were invested with supreme control. They could marry
and even divorce couples who were found incompatible. By the way, a
test case was tried at Yorkton to ascertain if these divorces by the coun-
cillors were legal. It was ruled that they were not, and if the divorced
parties married again, which they generally did, they committed bigamy
under our laws. This put a stop to the divorces.
The intention of the Doukhobors was to live as a nation within a
nation, and make their own laws, living entirely to themselves. They
claimed they were "God's chosen people." They gave great trouble when
the census was taken in 1901; they resisted the registration of births,
deaths and marriages, and giving their reason for refusing information,
they said "God knew it and it was nobody else's business."
Neither would they make individual entry for their homesteads. They
would not take the necessary oaths and claimed they were a community
and had nothing to do with individualism. As nobody wanted the lands,
which were first class, but too far from the railroad, or likely to want
them for years till a railway appeared, they were not disturbed at first,
but this could not be permitted to go on indefinitely; and finally they had
to throw up their homesteads. They purchased the intermediate railway
lands adjacent to their homesteads, getting, however, some concessions
where the villages were situated. A considerable number, however, of
the younger men, withdrew from the community and became independent
Doukhobors. These men had knocked about the country working for
farmers, and had imbibed some independent ideas. They got tired of
throwing their wages into a pool, and getting very little out of it, for the
Bibliography follows:
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