Background to Immigration

The Doukhobors had already moved several times before their migration to Canada.The Czarist government of russia kept sending them to more remote locations because of their pacifist beliefs and consequent refusal to do military service.Late in the Nineteenth Century,they located in the Transcaucasian region.While there,they expressed their opposition to warfare by burning their weapons.The date June 29,1895,often called St.Peters Day , is now commemorated as Peace Day.

They were able to finance their emigration through the fund-rasing of Count Leo Tolstoy and the Quakers of England and the United States,who were sympathetic to their cause.In return for permission to leave the country,they had to pay their own expenses,make their own travel arrangements ,and never come back.canada eager for hardy settlers to populate the West, welcomed them.
 

The Journey

The Nemanishens boarded the last of four ships, the S.S. Lake Huron, (a converted cattle boat) that left Batum, Turkey on May 12,1899 with approximately 2300 passengers.  They arrived in Canada on June 21,1899  and then at Quebec City on July 3rd and 4th, but were delayed in quarantine for twenty-seven days on Gross Island in the Gulf of St.Lawrence.  There were smallpox cases on board.

        Nemaishen passenger list
                                                        Age
        Michael (Misha) Nimonichin     30
        Anastassia Nimonichin              30
        Alexay Nimonichin                    11
        Evan Nimonichin                        5
        Michael Nimonichin                    4
        Anna Nimonichin                        1
        Evan Nimonichin                       24
        Anastassia Nimonichin               24
        Peter Nimonichin                         7
        Vassily Nimonichin                    18
        Anastassia Nimonichin               55

They had to provide their own food.  Most carried soochari (dried bread), cereals, cheese, dry fruit, tea sugar and anything else that provided nourishment for the entire trip.  The ship provided them with hot water.  They slept in cramped quarters.  The settlers took only meager personal belongings: clothes, bedding, seeds for gardens and fields and some tools.  Some converted assets into gold and brought that along.  Others came nearly empty-handed.  Someone told them that land in Canada was good - free of stones.  Being worried there would be no stones with which to mill their grain, they packed stones in trunks and wooden barrels.  The ship sat low in the water the entire voyage.  Upon arrival in Canada and seeing all those rocky shores, they dumped all the stones overboard.  It is said that the ship rose a foot out of the water!

They traveled by train from Quebec City via Winnipeg, to Yorkton and Saskatoon.  During the stop over in Winnipeg, they had medical examinations and a chance to rest, mend, claean up and purchase supplies.  Those who had enough money bought horses, wagons and other small equipment.  Language presented a difficulty in the new country.  On their arrival at Saskatoon they purchased more livestock, and a cavalcade set out to their designated land.  Very young children and the elderly were loaded onto the wagons along with possessions.  The rest walked behind the wagons crossing virgin land.  They choose a location 4 miles west of what is now Langham, on flat terrain overlooking the North Saskatchewan River.

The Village

Their village , Kirilowka, was named after the one the settlers left behind, near the city of Kars (now part of Turkey).  The village of Kirilowka was one of the first in the area to be settled.  To begin with, settlers lived in tents and whatever shelter they could get.  As they had done many times before in Russia, they were ready to begin anew.  The prairie sod was broken with horse-drawn plows and with had shovels.  They planted gardens and got on with their hard lives.

They constructed their homes with logs harvested from the river valley.  Houses were clay plastered and whitewashed.  The roofs were sod.  The furniture was hand-made.  Most had two rooms.  The larger one was for visiting and sleeping, with bunks that served as beds at night and benches during the day.  The other room was a kitchen.  A peche, a large, square brick/clay oven used for cooking and heating, occupied the center.

The village was laid out in plots on either side of an open area about two street widths.  The open area was often cultivated because they believed that when disease broke out, tilling the soil prevented the outbreak of an epidemic.  They built twenty-nine bouses accommodating about forty families.  They built a communal steam bathhouse which was used by villagers and visitors.  a community barn was located at one end of the village.  The cemetery was just to the west.

Many younger men worked outside the village.  Some even walked to Winnipeg to find employment, many of them working on the railroad.  Men often were home only long enough to plant a crop and break more land.  The rest, including women and children, tended to all aspects of village life including domestic and field work.  Some sold extra produce.  In the winter, the women had an opportunity to knit, sew, spin yarn and do fancy work.

They depended on the resources in the surrounding countryside.  They picked the local berries: saskatoons,strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, buffalo berries, pincherries, currants and choke cherries, and dried them or made them into preserves.  Being vegetarians, their staples were borscht (vegetable soup), perohee (tarts), plov (rice and raisins), blincee (large pancakes), lapshenvik (noodle bake).  The river provided them with fish, a constant water supply for people and livestock, a place to wash clothes, and recreaion; however, many young people drowned in the river.  In winter they cut ice for their water supply and for summer food preservation.

Community life was important.  Funerals and weddings were often held in homes of the families but included the community at large.  They socialized among themselves and with other villages.  They gathered for lively conversation, singing, and baseball games.  At first, elders reminisced about their Russian homeland, missing the warmer weather of Trancaucasia.  On sunday morning, gatherings (sobrania), with singing and reciting of psalms were held at different homes with elders officiating.  The children played in the village. As they got older, some attended Epp School, though not regularly.

At first, they lived communally in villages.  However, when the Government of Canada required them to file for individual homesteads, the Doukhobors split into two groups.  The Community Doukhobors, led by Peter V. Veregin, moved to British Columbia.  The Independents chose to take homesteads of their own.  The village was mostly unoccupied after that.

The villagers worked together for the good of all, according to their motto:  "Toil and Peaceful Life."