Canada To-day and To-morrow

by Arthur E. Copping

I found a few Dukhobors living in ordinary Canadian houses at Verigin proper, where the community has a range of offices, a warehouse, a brick-yard, a wheat elevator, and a flour-mill fitted with up-to-date machinery. Also there I found a handful of other nationalities (notably a Scotch family and a Roumanian family, who have both become Canadian), and they testified with two voices concerning the peculiar people in the midst of whom they dwell. But before referring to lines of cleavage in local opinion, I will briefly give my own superficial impressions of a community whose main principles have always engaged my sympathy.

They decline, on grounds of conscience, to serve as soldiers, and I happen to regard warfare between civilised nations as a hateful folly, admitting the peaceful and rational alternative of arbitration. They also object to slay animals for food, or for any other purpose, and, being myself inclined to a non-flesh diet, I was not likely to quarrel with that item of their humanitarian creed, even though I personally am unable to rise to the ethical height of sparing the lives of vermin. Thus such things as I shall say about these non-Canadians will at least issue from a mind unpolluted by prejudice.

The local section of the community (for other sections exist elsewhere in Canada) is distributed among several villages established within a short radius of Verigin. To one of those villages—Varnoe—I went on foot—or, rather, I went part of the way on foot; for a wagon overtook me on the road, and, addressing its two occupants (men who, by reason of their unanimated expressions and a Russian suggestion in the cut of their clothes, were easy to recognise as Dukhobors), I asked if they would kindly give me a lift. That my English was, however, thrown away upon them their expressionless faces clearly showed, so by pantomime I indicated the way by which I desired to profit by their indulgence. They vouchsafed no smile of acquiescence and no frown of refusal; so, without more ado, I scrambled into the vehicle, which promptly resumed its journey.

Now, had those two Dukhobors been possessed of even a moderate sense of humour, not to mention the gift of human sympathy, they must, I think, have betrayed some passing appreciation of the predicament in which I had all unwittingly involved myself. For the wagon had no springs, and I was having the time of my life in the matter of jolting and jarring, with stirring sensations as of the dislocation of one’s bones and the loosening of one’s teeth, as that awful conveyance went blundering along the rough road. Nor did occasion arise for any compassionate concern on behalf of my companions, since the seat they occupied was fixed to pliable steel supports that must have ensured for them a reasonable measure of physical comfort. And when—having had about enough of it—I called a halt and dismounted from that unsympathetic vehicle, there was still no sign of fraternity from either of those two self-centred and apparently depressed Dukhobors.

The village—when I presently arrived at it—proved a surprising place, with strange, foreign-looking and picturesque houses having walls plastered with mud, but with a note of distinction in the disposition of the timbering, in the shaping of the windows, and in the gable ends of the heavy vegetating roofs. Moreover, the eye was grateful for variations of detail in the several structures, no two being exactly alike, though all were affected by common principles of structure and design—all, at least, save a central meeting-place in prim brickwork, which was a civilised eyesore in that setting of primitive architecture.

But if the aspect of those Dukhobor dwellings could not fail to please an artist, their contiguity was calculated to horrify a social reformer. Here on the Canadian prairie, where one human habitation to 160 acres is the rule, there seemed something grotesquely gratuitous in a street of crowded houses, each with a little backyard that scarce afforded latitude for a pig, a wash-tub, and three gooseberry-bushes.

The men were either afield or indoors. But I saw a number of women. Some were applying mud to the walls, using their hands as trowels, and being copiously bemired from head to foot; others appeared and disappeared in their little gardens as they went sluggishly about their household affairs. Indeed, a sense of the sluggishness of those fat-faced, broad-bodied, heavily-clothed and big-booted women is the main impression they left on my mind. There were some children about, and they also seemed overburdened with clothes and deficient in vitality.

The stranger excited no curiosity, and prompted no spontaneous greetings. My friendly overtures to the adults were rewarded with dull nods and a muttered syllable or two. Those people were all quite happy, I suppose, but they were living their lives in a minor key. If one of the boys (not readily to be distinguished, by the by, from the girls) had only called out or whistled, or even set up a hullabaloo of blubbering, it would, I felt, have relieved the tension.

After walking twice from end to end of the village, I determined to see if it were not possible, by hook or by crook, to make a Dukhobor smile. Squatting on a seat in front of one of the houses, I laid myself out to secure the companionship of a little child who stood a few feet away, eyeing me with solemn misgiving. Not until I had produced my watch, fountain pen, bunch of keys and penknife, and spread them out before her, could the dubious youngster be coaxed forward. Yet her interest in these glittering valuables proved still-born; all my laborious attempts to show off their jingling and snappy parts being looked upon with a coldness bordering on boredom. However, that stumpy little Dukhobor toddler did at last manifest a spark of personality by earnestly pointing towards the grass at my feet; whereupon I plucked a bunch and held it out to her. The offering was accepted with alacrity and in a spirit of appreciation; hers being apparently the well-balanced type of mind which, content with things familiar and of established worth, is proof against the glamour of mere novelty. I gathered another handful of herbage and made a show of also surrendering that; but this time the chubby little fist stretched forth only to find the gift denied. Ten minutes later we were still doing that—attempts at surreptitious seizure sometimes prevailing against treacherous withdrawal, and the proceedings being frankly accepted by my tiny opponent as a legitimate and sporting way of passing the time. But all this time she did not smile. Nay, I had already begun to regard my aspiration as hopeless when, chancing to look round, I perceived that a Dukhobor woman—presumably the child’s mother—was overlooking our contest with much the air of a referee; and when I caught the eye of that Dukhobor woman she gave me a most gracious and unmistakable smile.

Soon afterwards, I retraced my steps along the road, and, calling at headquarters, sought an audience of the Dukhobor leader. But Peter M. Verigin, “Representative of the Dukhobor Society in Canada” (to give him the modest title which, on his visiting card, he gives himself), happened to be away on a journey. However, I was received by Mr. M. W. Cazakoff, the manager, who, in answer to my inquiries, made the following statement:—