Hope History Conference
Bridging The Past (March 2012)
Larry Ewashen was a presenter at a recent conference in Hope, BC entitled: Bridging the Past.
A variety of topics dealing with the heritage and history of British Columbia were covered, from native residential schools to Chinese immigration. Mr. Ewashen spoke on the Sons of Freedom who had camped in Hope on their trek to Agassiz. The sect emerged after the Doukhobor immigration of 1899. This was his presentation:
Who Are The Doukhobors?
The word Doukhobor means Spirit Wrestler. "We are Spirit Wrestlers because we wrestle with and for the Spirit of God against those things which are evil."
In 1895 they destroyed all of their weapons in a demonstration of pacifism. This was met with harsh oppression by the Czarist State and Orthodox Church attracting world wide attention.
Through arrangements with Clifford Sifton, Minister of the Interior, 7,500 Doukhobors immigrated to Assiniboia in 1899.
After cultivating nearly 300,000 acres, the Hamlet clause which allowed communal settlement was reversed and the Homestead Act enforced. The greatest land rush in Canadian history took place as Doukhobor cultivated land became available to 'more desirable settlers.' .
In an attempt to maintain their communal life style, between 1908 and 1913, 5,000 Doukhobors came to settle in the Kootenay Valley. This move has been designated as a National Historic Event, the largest migration ever within Canada.
Peter V. Verigin, recently proclaimed as a Person of National Historic Significance, named this spacious, beautiful valley Dolina Ootishenie, the "Valley of Consolation."
By 1913, 5,000 Doukhobors had arrived developing agriculture, orchards, lumber mills, irrigation projects, brick yards, roads, bridges, apiaries and the construction of over 90 communal villages. In 1913, they built the Doukhobor Suspension bridge, now a National Historic Monument.
In 1938, the Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood, the largest communal enterprise in North America, underwent foreclosure. The BC government took over $11,000,000. worth of properties and capital assets. In 1961 all went to public sale.
Today, Doukhobors maintain activities such as Sunday Prayer meetings, Russian language classes, publications and Internet sites, youth activity groups and festivals, talent shows, fund raisers for worthy causes, special dinners and active participation in peace groups and other benevolent endeavours.
Throughout the Doukhobor history in Canada, a rebellious sect emerged from their midst known as the Sons of Freedom.
Who Are The Sons Of Freedom?
Peter V. Verigin was in exile in Siberia and was unable to migrate to Canada with the Doukhobors in 1899. Without a leader, some dedicated Tolstoyans moved into the vacuum, and found a receptive audience among some of the more dedicated, anarchistic members.
While in exile Peter V. was in communication with many friends and sympathizers of the Doukhobors, and most importantly with Tolstoyans and people closely associated with Lev Tolstoy. In these letters, Peter V. emphasized that his views appear as Fantasies or Theories, idealistic fantasies and theories, not practical prescriptions for leading ones life. In a letter January 4, 1896, from the village of Obdorsk to Nicolae Trofimovich Izumchenko, he wrote the following: "I would like to see education as well as any written communication of course, dropped altogether, as a trial period for a couple of years. This is, as yet, only a thought, a product of fantasy. For example, our society's old age views of education are reprehensible, and we have very few educated people among us. The few, if any, are self-taught. We maintain that education destroys the inclination to greet people, also, schools corrupt the morals of children, and thirdly all things through which education is actualized are obtained through great hardships, therefore, to participate in the subjugation of people in any form must be avoided”. In this view, he is very close to Lev Tolstoy’s ideas regarding schools.
In 1901 the Doukhobors received a book of these letters, released under the editorship of Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich, with his introductory article and a forward by Vladimir and Anna Tchertkov. It was these letters that provided the greatest stimulus to the to the more gullible of the disaffected would-be Tolstoyans as they sought to become one with nature. Alexander Bodyansky, a Tolstoyan who had dispersed his fortune through assisting Tolstoyan communes, was the primary disseminator of these letters. He agitated for no land ownership, no registration of births and deaths, and eventually, no labour, but a simple life in a pure state akin to the garden of Eden. He had great optimism that the Doukhobors could form an ideal, 'natural state' society. He proceeded to write such letters of proclamation to the Canadian government, his name accompanied by the names of various followers which he included as agreeing to his statements, but who in fact, did not know the details of his letters. Bodyansky was soon deported by the Canadian government primarily because of his agitation against land ownership but from his exile in Switzerland, he continued sending missives exhorting the Doukhobors to seek the 'Christian' life. Other letters reinforcing these views came from Vladimir Tchertkov in England with regularity. Lev Tolstoy provided an epistle expounding the evils of materialism and warned the Doukhobors against such entrapment.
When Peter Verigin visited Russia in 1904 to thank Tolstoy and others for assisting with the Doukhobor immigration, Tolstoy, surrounded by a retinue of servants in the palatial manor house of a ten thousand acre estate, admonished him for allowing the Doukhobors to descend into the slough of material gain. At this time, faced with the dispossession of the 300,000 acres of improved land they had cultivated, Verigin was preoccupied with feeding the thousands of followers, and what was going to happen to them after they were removed from their hard earned land. This dispossession, no doubt, was stimulated by the very Tolstoyans who had been agitating against land ownership in a way that Tolstoy would have approved of. One of the many ironies of Doukhobor history.
From this is seen that many views of the group later known as the Sons of Freedom have direct connection to Verigin’s musings. Peter continues: "In my theory or understanding, in essence the order of composition should be: to drop physical labour one by one and go out to teach peace and charity which coincides with temperance. Bread is already plentiful; all that is necessary is to be less greedy. The soil, already depleted by man, would rest and replenish itself. I do not even foresee human suffering should they subject to such a theory, because by eating in moderation there would be enough for a hundred years. Humanity is omnivorous, and unfortunately eats for pleasure rather than need. In a hundred years the earth would have enough time to completely recover and go back to its original state. And humanity would attain spiritual growth along with a natural earthly paradise, which Adam and Eve had lost. If people want to become Christians they should gradually cease physical labour and preach the Gospel".
In this letter Peter brings forth arguments which the Freedomites later attempted to fully apply: “That the Apostles and Christ wore clothing and ate bread is natural because both were plentiful and it should be said that Christ and the Apostles could not suddenly go naked . . . I propose that people would gradually get used to physical nakedness, spiritual nakedness is much more sad. Having worn out his clothing and having eaten up one's bread, mankind would come to the condition of which I spoke earlier. I am told that all people cannot live as Christ and the Apostles did, but I will say that this must not sway us, for I believe that all can."
These contemplations resounded with a small group who sought to make manifest this fantasy into reality, and who came to the point of asceticism in their attempts to dutifully fulfill their leader’s prognostications.
This led to the trek of the Freedomites in the late fall of 1902. A pilgrimage of up to 3,000 men, women and children began a march toward Winnipeg to meet Jesus. With no provisions, threadbare, they reached Yorkton. Women and children were detained, about 600 men continued another 100 miles to Minnedosa, Manitoba. Here the Superintendent of Immigration put them on a train and shipped them back to Yorkton. Dried berries picked along the way were the basic sustenance. This incredible undertaking created sensational headlines and alarmed the government agents and supervisors.
In December of 1902 Peter V. Verigin arrived in Canada from Siberia. He placated the wanderers and advised them to begin rebuilding their lives in a more constructive way.
They were disappointed that he did not approve of their idealism and questioned, in particular, the exploitation of livestock. Verigin explained that man lived in tandem with animals, a symbiotic relationship in which one served the other. Seemingly, life was restored to normality. But in several villages the committed began to debate whether or not their leader was violating Christian teachings. Others found justification for his act saying, "Petushka is only fooling the Angliki with his doings and is only avoiding harassment from the government but he is not a betrayer of Christianity. Let him do his job and we will do ours. This is only a test from God".
From this was born the concept of reverse thinking and actions, and set the precedent that any action could be justified by the reverse concept. When the leader indicates a certain action, he is signalling the reverse action. Subsequently, this principle resulted in actions which may or may not have been actually desired by the leaders.
The outcome was that the most inspired zealots freed their cattle and horses in the fervour of returning back to nature. They completed this segment of cleansing by burning everything made from leather such as boots, harness, belts etc.
About 45 fanatics then organized a second pilgrimage in the spring of 1903. Many participants were naked in a show of innocent purity. The authorities were less patient this time, this trek was soon stopped, charges were laid and imprisonment took place.
After their release, Verigin visited their village and admired a plentiful stand of wheat that they had grown without benefit of animals. He encouraged their industriousness and said that now it was time to harvest. Overnight, thanks to reverse thinking, the crop was trampled into the ground. This was followed by the attempted destruction of a binder by first setting the canvas on fire. This mechanized monster was regarded as possibly inspired by the devil and an enemy of faith in God. These acts were denounced by Peter V. Verigin.
The third and final prairie pilgrimage took place in 1907 when a group of 80 went in search of the Promised Land. Marching in the same direction as in 1902, the group arrived in Fort William where they spent the winter in near starvation in an old parsonage. In 1908, they welcomed the New Year by demonstrating their belief in freedom by parading nude in the streets to the incredulity of the local citizens, who had been helping them throughout their stay.
By 1908, the government had forced all out of their villages replacing the Hamlet clause, which had allowed communal settlement, with the Homestead Act, which required individual filing of homesteads with the Oath of Allegiance. The demonstrations now took on an additional motive, that of embarrassing the officials. From this time on, the nudism took on the concept of being dispossessed as well as being pure in nature, as Adam and Eve, an irony since, prior to that, they had been agitating against land ownership. To be sure, they were lamenting the dispossession, they wanted to use the land, and not necessarily own it. They were brought back to Yorkton for trial where short jail terms were handed out.
Aside from some sporadic outbreaks, most of the Sons of Freedom moved to B.C. with the communal Doukhobors. Those who remained were the Independents who filed for individual homesteads.
Summary of British Columbia Activities
When the communal Doukhobors left to pioneer the land they had purchased in British Columbia, the majority of the Sons of Freedom came with them. It was here that they became notorious for extreme demonstrations. In particular, government sponsored schools became a target because of military training in the schools at that time.
In B.C., some of the mainstream Doukhobors fell sway to the comforts of assimilation, including Canadian citizenship, individual ownership, automobiles, luxury furniture and the hoarding of money. The Sons of Freedom were horrified by this development and took on the role of showing, by example, their rejection of material success and thus, became objects of persecution from their own brethren, as well as from peace officers.
Peter Verigin negotiated with the school enforcement officials and came to an agreement whereby no religious education or paramilitary exercises would be engaged in and children would attend their own schools. He then proceeded to build nine schools within the community property.
By 1921 and 1922, many of these school buildings were turning into ashes. The Sons of Freedom were totally against schools from the beginning, but now the situation between them and the authorities intensified. The orthodox blamed the Freedomites for the burning of schools and other community buildings, although no individuals were directly accused or arrested. The authorities were unable to find the guilty and this leads to speculation that some of the arson was caused by provocateurs and not by the Sons of Freedom at all.
In 1924 Peter V. was killed by an explosion in a railway coach. There were many theories regarding this apparent assassination, and some Doukhobors were convinced that he was murdered by a bomb being placed in his train carriage at the behest of the Canadian government.
The Doukhobors withdrew their children from school for a period of mourning but the authorities used repressive measures against them, confiscating their belongings as fines under the truancy act. When fines were not paid raids were enacted on community store houses, in one bitter case, seizing stored seed meant for spring planting.
The community directors chose to invite Peter P. Verigin, the son of Peter V. to come to Canada from Russia to head the Doukhobors and he arrived in 1927.
Upon his arrival, the Freedomite movement broadened in scope. In his first speech, P. P. Verigin appealed to the Doukhobors to unite and ordered the Freedomites to drop their fanaticism. In a further speech, concerning the three groups, the Orthodox, the Independents, and the Freedomites, he said the Sons of Freedom are none other than the ringing of a bell awakening all for Christ. The bringing forth of the Freedomites to a prominence opened the doors to an even bigger growth of the Freedomite movement.
BC Summary Chronology Of Major Actions
1927: 8 men were arrested in Nelson for “Obstructing Peace Officers”, and were sentenced to 6 months in prison.
1929: The Sons of Freedom staged a trek to Nelson from Thrums to protest Peter P. Verigin’s arrest and were stopped by the Provincial Police. They were sprayed with itching powder and then began to disrobe. 50 women and 54 men were arrested and were sentenced to 6 months in prison for indecent exposure. The rest were herded together and taken to Porto Rico, a CCUB property near Salmo, where they totalled 124 families, 537 people. Here, they faced a winter with little provisions, and many suffered from near starvation.
1930: Peter P. Verigin encouraged Saskatchewan people to move to British Columbia and join the ranks of the Sons of Freedom. Many moved from all three parties. Some abandoned their homesteads and their Oath of Allegiance and moved to B.C., feeling the effects of drought and the depression.
1931: The Federal Government secured an amendment to the Criminal code which provided a mandatory penalty of three years imprisonment for nudity. This extreme sentence indicates the government’s ruthless approach in dealing with the dissidents. Three years meant the Federal penitentiary, thus removing them from the community and their families.
117 men and women were arrested as they marched from Thrums to Nelson. After a mass trial they were all sentenced to three years. This encouraged a further demonstration in which 209 men, women and children were arrested. Further protests took place and by the end of May, 745 men, women and children were living in a detention camp in Nelson. The Okalla Prison where the prosecuted Sons where temporarily sent had to be abandoned because it was too small. The Federal Government then created a special prison for them on Piers Island near Victoria, BC.
1932: On orders from Chairman Peter P. Verigin community members began ousting members of the Sons Freedom and any non-payers of community dues. They gathered at Thrums. Being evicted they left all their belongings along the side of the road and marched towards Brilliant. Other Freedomites began to join their trek, as well as Doukhobors having nothing in common with Freedomites except the wish to help the protest of the ousted members from their homes. Demonstrations spread to Grand Forks. The police blocked the road and requested that they return home. In protest, taking an example from the Freedomites, they disrobed.
Thrums became the centre of public attention. The police arrested the nude and took them to the Nelson jail. Sympathizers of the evicted disrobed. They were loaded onto police buses. An encampment of tents appeared near Nelson where the protesters were temporarily kept. Protests grew spontaneously against accumulated grievances; deprivations and disagreements of the existing order ranging from Peter Verigin’s death, education, dispossession of land and other grievances, real and imagined. One could conjecture that they were basically not successful in living in their perceived value system and were basically unhappy malcontents. Blaming the government for all of their ills was a natural development. In the end close to 900 people sentenced for nudism ended up at Piers Island. The children were forcibly taken away from their parents and placed in foster homes and reform schools in the Vancouver area. Some infants died of neglect. A Special Commission was formed, and the children from the foster homes were placed with Doukhobor families. These children were shifted about with no legal orders or parental consent. On completion of three years imprisonment, all returned to their homes if they had any. One result was that after long discussions with the authorities, an agreement was reached that the community would allot a separate region of land where all the non-payers must settle. The Freedomites were allotted an area, now known as Krestova. In this manner, people of different outlooks and beliefs intermingled in Krestova. When the children were reunited with their parents, many were dysfunctional and some became the core protest activists of the next generation.
1935: The Island prison camp was closed after the Sons of Freedom were released.
The 1930s depression contributed to the turbulence within this group. Many had to go outside the community to find work to pay the fees for community homes. Canadian workers travelled from one end of the country to another on freight cars, seeking work but not finding any. To the protesters the economic system was proving to be a failure and reaffirmed the concept that land is a gift from God and should not be bought or sold. Destitute community members joined their ranks and Krestova became a haven to many independents from Saskatchewan and Alberta, ruined by the depression.
Here, different leaders emerged over a period of time, each propounding their own versions of an ideal commune, returning to nature and hence achieving human perfection. There was also a short lived communal experiment on Vancouver Island from the late forties to early fifties.
The Second World War also brought turmoil to the Freedomites. Despite the fact that the Doukhobors were legally exempt from military service, the military authorities distributed call-up papers to the young Doukhobors for medical examinations. Those who were not working in an essential war time service had to serve alternate time in work camps, prison or pay to the Red Cross. Next, the authorities required total registration of everyone. Many Doukhobors refused to register considering this to be preparation for military call up. Almost all of the Freedomites refused to register and were imprisoned.
1947 – Around the time of the Judge Sullivan Hearings, the Sons of Freedom from Krestova area began burning their homes, then went to Shoreacres and began burning Community Houses. Many people were arrested and sentenced to jail for seven years. The Freedomites at Gilpin, to support their brethren, began to burn their barns; they were also arrested and sent to prison for 7 years.
1950: The Sons of Freedom began staging nude protests, many were arrested and sentenced to three years. Men were sent to Okalla while women were interned in Grand Forks in the old curling rink building. This time some 400 Sons of Freedom were sentenced to Okalla Prison in the Greater Vancouver region. The relatively few women involved were sent to Kingston Penitentiary in Ontario.
1953: The newly elected government of W.A.C. Bennett began a series of actions aimed at forced assimilation. One of the measures was the incarceration of children who were not attending regular provincial schools and placing them in official care at a facility in New Denver, previously a TB sanatorium and, before that, home to interred Japanese during World War II. The children helped in the re-purposing of the building by helping to install the wire web fence around the grounds to prevent escape. This policy of seizing school age children continued until 1959.
1954: This ultimately resulted in the forceful separation of some 97 [later 170] children from their parents. The school rejecters were offered no alternatives beyond the truancy law and an ultimatum was issued by Robert Bonner, the Attorney General: either comply or we will break your back. In protest the Sons of Freedom at Krestova began burning their houses. Then they set up a tent Village at Perry’s Siding on a private property, moving there with their children. After a couple of weeks the police brought in trucks and began arresting the adults, the Freedomites began stripping, then the police separated them from their children and took the adults to Nelson Provincial Jail. 144 adults were arrested, most were sentenced between 18 months and three years and sent to Okalla in Burnaby, 42 children were placed in New Denver. A few of the children were over 15, a few between the age of 6 months and 6 years were returned to their relatives.
Shortly after this the raids began on Freedomite homes in the Slocan Valley, Krestova. Shoreacres, Glade, Pass Creek, Brilliant, Grand Forks and Gilpin areas with the forcible seizure of school age children. In retrospect, it could be seen why in earlier times they had refused registration of births, as children could be traced both for school and military enforcement. The New Denver Reform School continued to exist until the summer of 1959.
1961 – Judge Lord had concluded his Report on Doukhobor Lands. All former Doukhobor lands which the province now owned would be sub-divided and sold individually. The Sons of Freedom protested the sub-division and sale and began burnings and bombings throughout the Kootenays and Boundary areas. By the middle of 1961 many were arrested though no one was caught committing a crime, all were arrested because of statements to the police. It was quite likely that they were not responsible for all of the arson of that time as many business interests preferred all Doukhobors to disappear. The BC government then built a special metal and non-flammable prison in Agassiz.
1962: The majority were sentenced from 2 to 15 years. 96 inmates were placed in the Agassiz Mountain Prison. There were also 16 women placed at Agassiz Mountain Prison for arson, and sentenced to 2 years. On September 1, the great trek to Agassiz had started from Krestova in support of their brethren who were incarcerated. As people trekked through Shoreacres, Thrums, Brilliant and Castlegar, they gathered more followers. Many of these were women who wanted to be near their menfolk. Then they stopped at Gilpin and Grand Forks to pick up more supporters. They stopped at Bromley Park, just outside of Princeton, then from Princeton they moved to Hope; from Hope they went straight to Vancouver, where they spent the winter of 1962-1963. By middle August 1963, the majority had moved to Agassiz and established a tent village outside of Agassiz Mountain Prison.
1963: On July 21, both men and women at Agassiz Mountain Prison went on a 103 day hunger strike, until one of their brethren, 23 year old Paul Podmorow died. They were demanding an investigation into their incarceration.
1972 – 1985: In 1972 they were released and the Agassiz Camp was disbanded. The majority moved to a newly purchased land at Krestova and named it New Settlement. This particular piece of land was purchased after negotiations between Stephan Sorokin, Chairman of the Christian Community & Brotherhood of Reformed Doukhobors, and Judge William Evans, Commissioner of Doukhobor Lands.
Throughout this time there were sporadic outbreaks of violence in the Kootenay and Boundary areas but for the most part the Sons of Freedom notorious activity subsided.
In Summary
Solution to the problem has been attempted by sociologists, economists, psychologists and other experts at the request of the B.C. Government. Various studies and various committee hearings have taken place over the years and various recommendations have been suggested. The concept, rightly or wrongly, was that the Sons of Freedom had to be cured of their aberrations, and that they did not hold any legitimate views or grievances. In other words, they were expendable and had to be rolled into the fabric of the Canadian milieu so as to become indistinguishable. If one scrutinized this history in a broader scope, one could see that this was not merely a Doukhobor problem but was really symptomatic of a wider social problem which included other fringe groups, and there were lessons to be learned here.
In 1999 the B.C. Ombudsman issued a public report, Righting the Wrong, that called for an apology, an explanation, and compensation for those affected by the New Denver incarceration. A group called New Denver Survivors was formed to push for these remedies. In 2004 the Liberal government issued a statement of regret. The Survivors pushed for more but there was little progress.
In January, 2012, a tribunal took place in Nelson, which will have a result in 10 months or so. The struggle for redress continues.
Though there are sympathizers, many who are unfamiliar with the history of the Doukhobor movement and the concepts of the Freedomites among them, there is little understanding and few avenues through which one could attain a more illuminated understanding of the principles and history involved. Consequently, there have been a number of erroneous writings on this subject by naive, unqualified would-be experts, particularly with the advent of the internet.
The whole Freedomite movement, up to the death of Peter V. numbered few, striving to live the simplest life and subjecting themselves to self-denial and testing their endurance for the accomplishment of the goal of self perfection as outlined by Lev Tolstoy. Unfortunately, among some of them, some aberrant activities were also involved.
To the government, every person living in Canada must first be a 'good' citizen. Concerning the convictions and beliefs of the citizen, all beliefs and convictions of the people must fit into this category without exception. This anarchistic turbulent spirit which does not bow to anyone was the very antitheses of perceived law and order and good government. The society at the time the protests began, was also less tolerant of any deviation from the accepted norm and horrified by nudity in particular.
Those Sons of Freedom who burned, bombed and went naked distanced themselves from the main Doukhobor movement, and excluded themselves from it. The word Doukhobor should not be used to identify the zealots. When it is used, it falsely identifies the majority of law abiding, constructive, peaceful group with the unlawful behaviour. However, among those labelled as Sons of Freedom, were also people who strived to live a pure and selfless life and did not create acts of aggression and violence. These and others who ceased acts of violence but simply pursued self perfection, are readily welcomed back into the Doukhobor fold.
It is worth noting that while the government embarked on a litany of apologies to nearly every maligned group in Canada, the Doukhobors and the Sons of Freedom have not been included in these regrets, though their case is just.
And while the socially unacceptable actions of the Sons of Freedom cast a shadow over the majority of law abiding Doukhobors, their actions also hid or excused the greater wrongs committed by the government against the industrious toilers of the main Doukhobor movement. The breach of faith and betrayal of the immigration agreement which was to allow communal settlement and allowed by the Hamlet Clause has never been addressed, a direct contravention of an agreement which took place, despite justified protests by the public and humanitarians. This betrayal resulted in the displacement of close to 10,000 settlers to an uncertain fate as they were moved off of their 300,000 acres of improved land.
Finding new success in British Columbia under the guidance of Peter V. Verigin until his suspicious and still unsolved death in 1924, the B.C. government bargained with the trust companies in 1938, paid off an interest debt of $300,000 [settling for $260,000.] and became sole owner of properties, industries, chattels and homes, valued conservatively at $11,000,000. Not one cent was paid in compensation for roads, bridges, schools and all other improvements made by the community Doukhobors, and taken over and used by the BC government until their usefulness was over. When the elderly settlers were unable to purchase their own homes back from the government, they were served with eviction notices. Earlier, those who were not able to pay rent to live in their own previously owned and constructed homes, were shown the village gates.
Is the price of conformity sometimes too high in our society?
Or is this all one big communication problem?
Sources Consulted: Vladimir Bonch-Breuvich, Vladimir & Anna Chertkov, Peter Elasoff, Larry Ewashen, Svetlana Inakova, Steve Lapshinoff, RCMP D Squad, Nelson, Stefan Sorokin, William Soukeroff, Koozma Tarasoff, Lev Tolstoy, Peter V. Verigin, Peter P. Verigin, George Woodcock.
Larry Ewashen was a presenter at a recent conference in Hope, BC entitled: Bridging the Past.
A variety of topics dealing with the heritage and history of British Columbia were covered, from native residential schools to Chinese immigration. Mr. Ewashen spoke on the Sons of Freedom who had camped in Hope on their trek to Agassiz. The sect emerged after the Doukhobor immigration of 1899. This was his presentation:
Who Are The Doukhobors?
The word Doukhobor means Spirit Wrestler. "We are Spirit Wrestlers because we wrestle with and for the Spirit of God against those things which are evil."
In 1895 they destroyed all of their weapons in a demonstration of pacifism. This was met with harsh oppression by the Czarist State and Orthodox Church attracting world wide attention.
Through arrangements with Clifford Sifton, Minister of the Interior, 7,500 Doukhobors immigrated to Assiniboia in 1899.
After cultivating nearly 300,000 acres, the Hamlet clause which allowed communal settlement was reversed and the Homestead Act enforced. The greatest land rush in Canadian history took place as Doukhobor cultivated land became available to 'more desirable settlers.' .
In an attempt to maintain their communal life style, between 1908 and 1913, 5,000 Doukhobors came to settle in the Kootenay Valley. This move has been designated as a National Historic Event, the largest migration ever within Canada.
Peter V. Verigin, recently proclaimed as a Person of National Historic Significance, named this spacious, beautiful valley Dolina Ootishenie, the "Valley of Consolation."
By 1913, 5,000 Doukhobors had arrived developing agriculture, orchards, lumber mills, irrigation projects, brick yards, roads, bridges, apiaries and the construction of over 90 communal villages. In 1913, they built the Doukhobor Suspension bridge, now a National Historic Monument.
In 1938, the Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood, the largest communal enterprise in North America, underwent foreclosure. The BC government took over $11,000,000. worth of properties and capital assets. In 1961 all went to public sale.
Today, Doukhobors maintain activities such as Sunday Prayer meetings, Russian language classes, publications and Internet sites, youth activity groups and festivals, talent shows, fund raisers for worthy causes, special dinners and active participation in peace groups and other benevolent endeavours.
Throughout the Doukhobor history in Canada, a rebellious sect emerged from their midst known as the Sons of Freedom.
Who Are The Sons Of Freedom?
Peter V. Verigin was in exile in Siberia and was unable to migrate to Canada with the Doukhobors in 1899. Without a leader, some dedicated Tolstoyans moved into the vacuum, and found a receptive audience among some of the more dedicated, anarchistic members.
While in exile Peter V. was in communication with many friends and sympathizers of the Doukhobors, and most importantly with Tolstoyans and people closely associated with Lev Tolstoy. In these letters, Peter V. emphasized that his views appear as Fantasies or Theories, idealistic fantasies and theories, not practical prescriptions for leading ones life. In a letter January 4, 1896, from the village of Obdorsk to Nicolae Trofimovich Izumchenko, he wrote the following: "I would like to see education as well as any written communication of course, dropped altogether, as a trial period for a couple of years. This is, as yet, only a thought, a product of fantasy. For example, our society's old age views of education are reprehensible, and we have very few educated people among us. The few, if any, are self-taught. We maintain that education destroys the inclination to greet people, also, schools corrupt the morals of children, and thirdly all things through which education is actualized are obtained through great hardships, therefore, to participate in the subjugation of people in any form must be avoided”. In this view, he is very close to Lev Tolstoy’s ideas regarding schools.
In 1901 the Doukhobors received a book of these letters, released under the editorship of Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich, with his introductory article and a forward by Vladimir and Anna Tchertkov. It was these letters that provided the greatest stimulus to the to the more gullible of the disaffected would-be Tolstoyans as they sought to become one with nature. Alexander Bodyansky, a Tolstoyan who had dispersed his fortune through assisting Tolstoyan communes, was the primary disseminator of these letters. He agitated for no land ownership, no registration of births and deaths, and eventually, no labour, but a simple life in a pure state akin to the garden of Eden. He had great optimism that the Doukhobors could form an ideal, 'natural state' society. He proceeded to write such letters of proclamation to the Canadian government, his name accompanied by the names of various followers which he included as agreeing to his statements, but who in fact, did not know the details of his letters. Bodyansky was soon deported by the Canadian government primarily because of his agitation against land ownership but from his exile in Switzerland, he continued sending missives exhorting the Doukhobors to seek the 'Christian' life. Other letters reinforcing these views came from Vladimir Tchertkov in England with regularity. Lev Tolstoy provided an epistle expounding the evils of materialism and warned the Doukhobors against such entrapment.
When Peter Verigin visited Russia in 1904 to thank Tolstoy and others for assisting with the Doukhobor immigration, Tolstoy, surrounded by a retinue of servants in the palatial manor house of a ten thousand acre estate, admonished him for allowing the Doukhobors to descend into the slough of material gain. At this time, faced with the dispossession of the 300,000 acres of improved land they had cultivated, Verigin was preoccupied with feeding the thousands of followers, and what was going to happen to them after they were removed from their hard earned land. This dispossession, no doubt, was stimulated by the very Tolstoyans who had been agitating against land ownership in a way that Tolstoy would have approved of. One of the many ironies of Doukhobor history.
From this is seen that many views of the group later known as the Sons of Freedom have direct connection to Verigin’s musings. Peter continues: "In my theory or understanding, in essence the order of composition should be: to drop physical labour one by one and go out to teach peace and charity which coincides with temperance. Bread is already plentiful; all that is necessary is to be less greedy. The soil, already depleted by man, would rest and replenish itself. I do not even foresee human suffering should they subject to such a theory, because by eating in moderation there would be enough for a hundred years. Humanity is omnivorous, and unfortunately eats for pleasure rather than need. In a hundred years the earth would have enough time to completely recover and go back to its original state. And humanity would attain spiritual growth along with a natural earthly paradise, which Adam and Eve had lost. If people want to become Christians they should gradually cease physical labour and preach the Gospel".
In this letter Peter brings forth arguments which the Freedomites later attempted to fully apply: “That the Apostles and Christ wore clothing and ate bread is natural because both were plentiful and it should be said that Christ and the Apostles could not suddenly go naked . . . I propose that people would gradually get used to physical nakedness, spiritual nakedness is much more sad. Having worn out his clothing and having eaten up one's bread, mankind would come to the condition of which I spoke earlier. I am told that all people cannot live as Christ and the Apostles did, but I will say that this must not sway us, for I believe that all can."
These contemplations resounded with a small group who sought to make manifest this fantasy into reality, and who came to the point of asceticism in their attempts to dutifully fulfill their leader’s prognostications.
This led to the trek of the Freedomites in the late fall of 1902. A pilgrimage of up to 3,000 men, women and children began a march toward Winnipeg to meet Jesus. With no provisions, threadbare, they reached Yorkton. Women and children were detained, about 600 men continued another 100 miles to Minnedosa, Manitoba. Here the Superintendent of Immigration put them on a train and shipped them back to Yorkton. Dried berries picked along the way were the basic sustenance. This incredible undertaking created sensational headlines and alarmed the government agents and supervisors.
In December of 1902 Peter V. Verigin arrived in Canada from Siberia. He placated the wanderers and advised them to begin rebuilding their lives in a more constructive way.
They were disappointed that he did not approve of their idealism and questioned, in particular, the exploitation of livestock. Verigin explained that man lived in tandem with animals, a symbiotic relationship in which one served the other. Seemingly, life was restored to normality. But in several villages the committed began to debate whether or not their leader was violating Christian teachings. Others found justification for his act saying, "Petushka is only fooling the Angliki with his doings and is only avoiding harassment from the government but he is not a betrayer of Christianity. Let him do his job and we will do ours. This is only a test from God".
From this was born the concept of reverse thinking and actions, and set the precedent that any action could be justified by the reverse concept. When the leader indicates a certain action, he is signalling the reverse action. Subsequently, this principle resulted in actions which may or may not have been actually desired by the leaders.
The outcome was that the most inspired zealots freed their cattle and horses in the fervour of returning back to nature. They completed this segment of cleansing by burning everything made from leather such as boots, harness, belts etc.
About 45 fanatics then organized a second pilgrimage in the spring of 1903. Many participants were naked in a show of innocent purity. The authorities were less patient this time, this trek was soon stopped, charges were laid and imprisonment took place.
After their release, Verigin visited their village and admired a plentiful stand of wheat that they had grown without benefit of animals. He encouraged their industriousness and said that now it was time to harvest. Overnight, thanks to reverse thinking, the crop was trampled into the ground. This was followed by the attempted destruction of a binder by first setting the canvas on fire. This mechanized monster was regarded as possibly inspired by the devil and an enemy of faith in God. These acts were denounced by Peter V. Verigin.
The third and final prairie pilgrimage took place in 1907 when a group of 80 went in search of the Promised Land. Marching in the same direction as in 1902, the group arrived in Fort William where they spent the winter in near starvation in an old parsonage. In 1908, they welcomed the New Year by demonstrating their belief in freedom by parading nude in the streets to the incredulity of the local citizens, who had been helping them throughout their stay.
By 1908, the government had forced all out of their villages replacing the Hamlet clause, which had allowed communal settlement, with the Homestead Act, which required individual filing of homesteads with the Oath of Allegiance. The demonstrations now took on an additional motive, that of embarrassing the officials. From this time on, the nudism took on the concept of being dispossessed as well as being pure in nature, as Adam and Eve, an irony since, prior to that, they had been agitating against land ownership. To be sure, they were lamenting the dispossession, they wanted to use the land, and not necessarily own it. They were brought back to Yorkton for trial where short jail terms were handed out.
Aside from some sporadic outbreaks, most of the Sons of Freedom moved to B.C. with the communal Doukhobors. Those who remained were the Independents who filed for individual homesteads.
Summary of British Columbia Activities
When the communal Doukhobors left to pioneer the land they had purchased in British Columbia, the majority of the Sons of Freedom came with them. It was here that they became notorious for extreme demonstrations. In particular, government sponsored schools became a target because of military training in the schools at that time.
In B.C., some of the mainstream Doukhobors fell sway to the comforts of assimilation, including Canadian citizenship, individual ownership, automobiles, luxury furniture and the hoarding of money. The Sons of Freedom were horrified by this development and took on the role of showing, by example, their rejection of material success and thus, became objects of persecution from their own brethren, as well as from peace officers.
Peter Verigin negotiated with the school enforcement officials and came to an agreement whereby no religious education or paramilitary exercises would be engaged in and children would attend their own schools. He then proceeded to build nine schools within the community property.
By 1921 and 1922, many of these school buildings were turning into ashes. The Sons of Freedom were totally against schools from the beginning, but now the situation between them and the authorities intensified. The orthodox blamed the Freedomites for the burning of schools and other community buildings, although no individuals were directly accused or arrested. The authorities were unable to find the guilty and this leads to speculation that some of the arson was caused by provocateurs and not by the Sons of Freedom at all.
In 1924 Peter V. was killed by an explosion in a railway coach. There were many theories regarding this apparent assassination, and some Doukhobors were convinced that he was murdered by a bomb being placed in his train carriage at the behest of the Canadian government.
The Doukhobors withdrew their children from school for a period of mourning but the authorities used repressive measures against them, confiscating their belongings as fines under the truancy act. When fines were not paid raids were enacted on community store houses, in one bitter case, seizing stored seed meant for spring planting.
The community directors chose to invite Peter P. Verigin, the son of Peter V. to come to Canada from Russia to head the Doukhobors and he arrived in 1927.
Upon his arrival, the Freedomite movement broadened in scope. In his first speech, P. P. Verigin appealed to the Doukhobors to unite and ordered the Freedomites to drop their fanaticism. In a further speech, concerning the three groups, the Orthodox, the Independents, and the Freedomites, he said the Sons of Freedom are none other than the ringing of a bell awakening all for Christ. The bringing forth of the Freedomites to a prominence opened the doors to an even bigger growth of the Freedomite movement.
BC Summary Chronology Of Major Actions
1927: 8 men were arrested in Nelson for “Obstructing Peace Officers”, and were sentenced to 6 months in prison.
1929: The Sons of Freedom staged a trek to Nelson from Thrums to protest Peter P. Verigin’s arrest and were stopped by the Provincial Police. They were sprayed with itching powder and then began to disrobe. 50 women and 54 men were arrested and were sentenced to 6 months in prison for indecent exposure. The rest were herded together and taken to Porto Rico, a CCUB property near Salmo, where they totalled 124 families, 537 people. Here, they faced a winter with little provisions, and many suffered from near starvation.
1930: Peter P. Verigin encouraged Saskatchewan people to move to British Columbia and join the ranks of the Sons of Freedom. Many moved from all three parties. Some abandoned their homesteads and their Oath of Allegiance and moved to B.C., feeling the effects of drought and the depression.
1931: The Federal Government secured an amendment to the Criminal code which provided a mandatory penalty of three years imprisonment for nudity. This extreme sentence indicates the government’s ruthless approach in dealing with the dissidents. Three years meant the Federal penitentiary, thus removing them from the community and their families.
117 men and women were arrested as they marched from Thrums to Nelson. After a mass trial they were all sentenced to three years. This encouraged a further demonstration in which 209 men, women and children were arrested. Further protests took place and by the end of May, 745 men, women and children were living in a detention camp in Nelson. The Okalla Prison where the prosecuted Sons where temporarily sent had to be abandoned because it was too small. The Federal Government then created a special prison for them on Piers Island near Victoria, BC.
1932: On orders from Chairman Peter P. Verigin community members began ousting members of the Sons Freedom and any non-payers of community dues. They gathered at Thrums. Being evicted they left all their belongings along the side of the road and marched towards Brilliant. Other Freedomites began to join their trek, as well as Doukhobors having nothing in common with Freedomites except the wish to help the protest of the ousted members from their homes. Demonstrations spread to Grand Forks. The police blocked the road and requested that they return home. In protest, taking an example from the Freedomites, they disrobed.
Thrums became the centre of public attention. The police arrested the nude and took them to the Nelson jail. Sympathizers of the evicted disrobed. They were loaded onto police buses. An encampment of tents appeared near Nelson where the protesters were temporarily kept. Protests grew spontaneously against accumulated grievances; deprivations and disagreements of the existing order ranging from Peter Verigin’s death, education, dispossession of land and other grievances, real and imagined. One could conjecture that they were basically not successful in living in their perceived value system and were basically unhappy malcontents. Blaming the government for all of their ills was a natural development. In the end close to 900 people sentenced for nudism ended up at Piers Island. The children were forcibly taken away from their parents and placed in foster homes and reform schools in the Vancouver area. Some infants died of neglect. A Special Commission was formed, and the children from the foster homes were placed with Doukhobor families. These children were shifted about with no legal orders or parental consent. On completion of three years imprisonment, all returned to their homes if they had any. One result was that after long discussions with the authorities, an agreement was reached that the community would allot a separate region of land where all the non-payers must settle. The Freedomites were allotted an area, now known as Krestova. In this manner, people of different outlooks and beliefs intermingled in Krestova. When the children were reunited with their parents, many were dysfunctional and some became the core protest activists of the next generation.
1935: The Island prison camp was closed after the Sons of Freedom were released.
The 1930s depression contributed to the turbulence within this group. Many had to go outside the community to find work to pay the fees for community homes. Canadian workers travelled from one end of the country to another on freight cars, seeking work but not finding any. To the protesters the economic system was proving to be a failure and reaffirmed the concept that land is a gift from God and should not be bought or sold. Destitute community members joined their ranks and Krestova became a haven to many independents from Saskatchewan and Alberta, ruined by the depression.
Here, different leaders emerged over a period of time, each propounding their own versions of an ideal commune, returning to nature and hence achieving human perfection. There was also a short lived communal experiment on Vancouver Island from the late forties to early fifties.
The Second World War also brought turmoil to the Freedomites. Despite the fact that the Doukhobors were legally exempt from military service, the military authorities distributed call-up papers to the young Doukhobors for medical examinations. Those who were not working in an essential war time service had to serve alternate time in work camps, prison or pay to the Red Cross. Next, the authorities required total registration of everyone. Many Doukhobors refused to register considering this to be preparation for military call up. Almost all of the Freedomites refused to register and were imprisoned.
1947 – Around the time of the Judge Sullivan Hearings, the Sons of Freedom from Krestova area began burning their homes, then went to Shoreacres and began burning Community Houses. Many people were arrested and sentenced to jail for seven years. The Freedomites at Gilpin, to support their brethren, began to burn their barns; they were also arrested and sent to prison for 7 years.
1950: The Sons of Freedom began staging nude protests, many were arrested and sentenced to three years. Men were sent to Okalla while women were interned in Grand Forks in the old curling rink building. This time some 400 Sons of Freedom were sentenced to Okalla Prison in the Greater Vancouver region. The relatively few women involved were sent to Kingston Penitentiary in Ontario.
1953: The newly elected government of W.A.C. Bennett began a series of actions aimed at forced assimilation. One of the measures was the incarceration of children who were not attending regular provincial schools and placing them in official care at a facility in New Denver, previously a TB sanatorium and, before that, home to interred Japanese during World War II. The children helped in the re-purposing of the building by helping to install the wire web fence around the grounds to prevent escape. This policy of seizing school age children continued until 1959.
1954: This ultimately resulted in the forceful separation of some 97 [later 170] children from their parents. The school rejecters were offered no alternatives beyond the truancy law and an ultimatum was issued by Robert Bonner, the Attorney General: either comply or we will break your back. In protest the Sons of Freedom at Krestova began burning their houses. Then they set up a tent Village at Perry’s Siding on a private property, moving there with their children. After a couple of weeks the police brought in trucks and began arresting the adults, the Freedomites began stripping, then the police separated them from their children and took the adults to Nelson Provincial Jail. 144 adults were arrested, most were sentenced between 18 months and three years and sent to Okalla in Burnaby, 42 children were placed in New Denver. A few of the children were over 15, a few between the age of 6 months and 6 years were returned to their relatives.
Shortly after this the raids began on Freedomite homes in the Slocan Valley, Krestova. Shoreacres, Glade, Pass Creek, Brilliant, Grand Forks and Gilpin areas with the forcible seizure of school age children. In retrospect, it could be seen why in earlier times they had refused registration of births, as children could be traced both for school and military enforcement. The New Denver Reform School continued to exist until the summer of 1959.
1961 – Judge Lord had concluded his Report on Doukhobor Lands. All former Doukhobor lands which the province now owned would be sub-divided and sold individually. The Sons of Freedom protested the sub-division and sale and began burnings and bombings throughout the Kootenays and Boundary areas. By the middle of 1961 many were arrested though no one was caught committing a crime, all were arrested because of statements to the police. It was quite likely that they were not responsible for all of the arson of that time as many business interests preferred all Doukhobors to disappear. The BC government then built a special metal and non-flammable prison in Agassiz.
1962: The majority were sentenced from 2 to 15 years. 96 inmates were placed in the Agassiz Mountain Prison. There were also 16 women placed at Agassiz Mountain Prison for arson, and sentenced to 2 years. On September 1, the great trek to Agassiz had started from Krestova in support of their brethren who were incarcerated. As people trekked through Shoreacres, Thrums, Brilliant and Castlegar, they gathered more followers. Many of these were women who wanted to be near their menfolk. Then they stopped at Gilpin and Grand Forks to pick up more supporters. They stopped at Bromley Park, just outside of Princeton, then from Princeton they moved to Hope; from Hope they went straight to Vancouver, where they spent the winter of 1962-1963. By middle August 1963, the majority had moved to Agassiz and established a tent village outside of Agassiz Mountain Prison.
1963: On July 21, both men and women at Agassiz Mountain Prison went on a 103 day hunger strike, until one of their brethren, 23 year old Paul Podmorow died. They were demanding an investigation into their incarceration.
1972 – 1985: In 1972 they were released and the Agassiz Camp was disbanded. The majority moved to a newly purchased land at Krestova and named it New Settlement. This particular piece of land was purchased after negotiations between Stephan Sorokin, Chairman of the Christian Community & Brotherhood of Reformed Doukhobors, and Judge William Evans, Commissioner of Doukhobor Lands.
Throughout this time there were sporadic outbreaks of violence in the Kootenay and Boundary areas but for the most part the Sons of Freedom notorious activity subsided.
In Summary
Solution to the problem has been attempted by sociologists, economists, psychologists and other experts at the request of the B.C. Government. Various studies and various committee hearings have taken place over the years and various recommendations have been suggested. The concept, rightly or wrongly, was that the Sons of Freedom had to be cured of their aberrations, and that they did not hold any legitimate views or grievances. In other words, they were expendable and had to be rolled into the fabric of the Canadian milieu so as to become indistinguishable. If one scrutinized this history in a broader scope, one could see that this was not merely a Doukhobor problem but was really symptomatic of a wider social problem which included other fringe groups, and there were lessons to be learned here.
In 1999 the B.C. Ombudsman issued a public report, Righting the Wrong, that called for an apology, an explanation, and compensation for those affected by the New Denver incarceration. A group called New Denver Survivors was formed to push for these remedies. In 2004 the Liberal government issued a statement of regret. The Survivors pushed for more but there was little progress.
In January, 2012, a tribunal took place in Nelson, which will have a result in 10 months or so. The struggle for redress continues.
Though there are sympathizers, many who are unfamiliar with the history of the Doukhobor movement and the concepts of the Freedomites among them, there is little understanding and few avenues through which one could attain a more illuminated understanding of the principles and history involved. Consequently, there have been a number of erroneous writings on this subject by naive, unqualified would-be experts, particularly with the advent of the internet.
The whole Freedomite movement, up to the death of Peter V. numbered few, striving to live the simplest life and subjecting themselves to self-denial and testing their endurance for the accomplishment of the goal of self perfection as outlined by Lev Tolstoy. Unfortunately, among some of them, some aberrant activities were also involved.
To the government, every person living in Canada must first be a 'good' citizen. Concerning the convictions and beliefs of the citizen, all beliefs and convictions of the people must fit into this category without exception. This anarchistic turbulent spirit which does not bow to anyone was the very antitheses of perceived law and order and good government. The society at the time the protests began, was also less tolerant of any deviation from the accepted norm and horrified by nudity in particular.
Those Sons of Freedom who burned, bombed and went naked distanced themselves from the main Doukhobor movement, and excluded themselves from it. The word Doukhobor should not be used to identify the zealots. When it is used, it falsely identifies the majority of law abiding, constructive, peaceful group with the unlawful behaviour. However, among those labelled as Sons of Freedom, were also people who strived to live a pure and selfless life and did not create acts of aggression and violence. These and others who ceased acts of violence but simply pursued self perfection, are readily welcomed back into the Doukhobor fold.
It is worth noting that while the government embarked on a litany of apologies to nearly every maligned group in Canada, the Doukhobors and the Sons of Freedom have not been included in these regrets, though their case is just.
And while the socially unacceptable actions of the Sons of Freedom cast a shadow over the majority of law abiding Doukhobors, their actions also hid or excused the greater wrongs committed by the government against the industrious toilers of the main Doukhobor movement. The breach of faith and betrayal of the immigration agreement which was to allow communal settlement and allowed by the Hamlet Clause has never been addressed, a direct contravention of an agreement which took place, despite justified protests by the public and humanitarians. This betrayal resulted in the displacement of close to 10,000 settlers to an uncertain fate as they were moved off of their 300,000 acres of improved land.
Finding new success in British Columbia under the guidance of Peter V. Verigin until his suspicious and still unsolved death in 1924, the B.C. government bargained with the trust companies in 1938, paid off an interest debt of $300,000 [settling for $260,000.] and became sole owner of properties, industries, chattels and homes, valued conservatively at $11,000,000. Not one cent was paid in compensation for roads, bridges, schools and all other improvements made by the community Doukhobors, and taken over and used by the BC government until their usefulness was over. When the elderly settlers were unable to purchase their own homes back from the government, they were served with eviction notices. Earlier, those who were not able to pay rent to live in their own previously owned and constructed homes, were shown the village gates.
Is the price of conformity sometimes too high in our society?
Or is this all one big communication problem?
Sources Consulted: Vladimir Bonch-Breuvich, Vladimir & Anna Chertkov, Peter Elasoff, Larry Ewashen, Svetlana Inakova, Steve Lapshinoff, RCMP D Squad, Nelson, Stefan Sorokin, William Soukeroff, Koozma Tarasoff, Lev Tolstoy, Peter V. Verigin, Peter P. Verigin, George Woodcock.