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 landwas mostly open, virgin ranchland with light underbrush and timber stands, although it also contained several hundred acres of the roughest and wildest unbroken land. Within five years, they transformed this wilderness land into a veritable garden.
