This film has drawn on the original material - the Doukhobors themselves, and explores the history of the Doukhobors in Canada through their own words, their own experiences, their own photographs and their own settlements. It traces the arrival of the Doukhobors through original documents prior to and including the 1890's, after which it concentrates on the interviews and narrations of the Doukhobors themselves, continuing their history to the present time. The film is an invaluable collection and documentation of their entire history in Canada. It is valuable not only as a documentation of a struggling people whose history parallels the settling of Canada's west but also as a social document.

BACKGROUND

The Doukhobors came to Canada from Russia in 1898-99 as victims of religious and political persecution. Through changes of interpretation of settlement policy by the Dominion government, a deliberate attempt at forced assimilation in 1907 and after, thousands of acres of developed land were seized in Saskatchewan, a flourishing communal system comprised of 90 villages. Having purchased 20,000 acres of land in British Columbia, a new communal system was once again brought to its knees in 1938: this time by mortgage and trust companies in collusion with the BC government. [The foreclosure was brought about because of $300,000. debt on properties valued at over $6,000,000!]

This fact alone, as well as other examples of persecution, has made modern researchers have little doubt that there was a deliberate attempt to eradicate this people's life style from Canada. The once successful communal life style has ended but many of the values that inspired the Doukhohors over one hundred years ago such as pacifism, a rational, non- ritualistic view of Christianity, and vegetarianism, seem more timely than ever today. The descendants of these pioneers maintain their beliefs and consider their aspirations for peace and brotherhood as a social movement and as an ideal way of life whose time has come.