The Book of the West: The story of western Canada, its birth and early adventures, its youthful combats, its peaceful settlement, its great transformation, and its present waysKennedy, Howard Angus
History
The Book of the West: The story of western Canada, its birth and early adventures, its youthful combats, its peaceful settlement, its great transformation, and its present ways
Kennedy, Howard Angus
Northwest, Canadian
We have all heard of the little gang of fanatical extremists bearing
that name, who now and then make trouble for the police. The members of
the Doukhobor community, as a whole, are distressed by such proceedings,
for which they are often blamed. The saddler, when we go for the mended
girth, expounds their views in quite good English. “When a criminal
lunatic calls himself a Presbyterian or Catholic,” he protests, “you
don’t hold up your hands and cry ‘Oh, those dreadful Presbyterians and
Catholics!’ I know we have peculiar ideas, and we have suffered for
them; but we are not criminals and we are not mad.”
They are like our Quakers in their opposition to fighting, and in the
simplicity of their religious observances as well as their daily life.
Each family has its little personal belongings; but the land, live stock
and implements are owned by the community. “The co-operation that we
preach they practise,” an observer says, who knows them well, “and we
should be honestly thankful to them for trying to live up to high ideals
in a too materialistic age. Though they cultivate an almost primitive
simplicity of life, in the cultivation of the ground they are by no
means primitive, but keen to adopt the most scientific methods, which
their strong co-operative organization enables them to practise with
admirable success. They are industrious workers. Their cleanliness and
good health are remarkable. The value of all this to our country is so
great that it should not be impossible, with sufficient good-will and
elasticity of law on our part, to allow them to work out their system
side by side with our own—especially as their number is not large, for
many leave their community rather than submit to its rules and
restrictions.”
But the bugles are calling at Edmonton; we must be up and away. It is a
long, long ride, and we can hardly resist the temptation to stop and
chat with new settlers by the way. Here, for instance, is a farmer who
keeps a stopping place—a common practice along trails where there is
nothing like a hotel. Fifteen cents for a “noon” and twenty-five cents
for a square meal, that seems the regular tariff.
These are evidently people of taste. The old gentleman and his
grandchildren have already taken time, in the intervals of chores and
attendance on hungry travellers, to lay out a garden, where asters,
poppies and mignonette bloom in a setting of elk horns and buffalo
skulls. In the parlor of the comfortable log house is a well-used
library of a hundred books, including Dickens, Kipling, and a strong
contingent of religious authors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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