On This Day: Doukhobor Leader Verigin Killed, 1924

A bomb tore through a passenger car near Farron, B.C., at about 1 a.m. on Oct. 29, 1924, killing Doukhobor spiritual leader Peter Verigin and others aboard, in an explosion that has never been solved.

Verigin had boarded a Canadian Pacific Railway train at Brilliant, B.C., his community’s headquarters, bound for Grand Forks, according to the Doukhobor Heritage site’s reprint of a 2004 Beaver magazine article by historian Larry Hannant. The Canadian Encyclopedia says he was killed outside Farron, along the Kettle Valley line in the province’s southern Interior.

According to the Hannant article, 21 people were in the car and all but two were killed or injured. It names Verigin, his companion Mary Strelaeff, 20, and John McKie, a member-elect of the B.C. legislature, among the nine dead. It says Verigin’s body was found about 15 metres from the wreckage.

The sources differ on some details. The Canadian Encyclopedia, in an article by John Boyko, says Verigin and all but two of his fellow travellers were killed instantly. The Hannant account puts the dead at nine and describes the others as injured. The Hannant reprint also gives both Oct. 28 and Oct. 29 for the evening of boarding and the explosion. It says Verigin boarded late on the evening of Oct. 28 and that the blast came just past one in the morning, which places it on Oct. 29. The Canadian Encyclopedia and the National Trust of Canada both give Oct. 29.

Verigin was born in 1859 in Slavianka, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia, which says his followers called him “Gospodnii,” or “Lordly.” Verigin came to Canada after years of exile in Russia. The Hannant article says he was released in July 1902 and reached Winnipeg that December. He later led the community from its base at Brilliant.

Investigators found the remains of an Italian-made clock wired to a battery, the Hannant article says, with debris blown about 75 metres. It says an intensive investigation by provincial police and the CPR found nothing, and a $2,000 provincial reward drew no solid information. The same account says a CPR investigator pointed to a Russian watchmaker, identified as Metro Grishen, who was never located. The Canadian Encyclopedia says the RCMP investigated but could not determine whether the explosion was an accident or an assassination.

Theories have multiplied for a century. The Canadian Encyclopedia and the Hannant article both list the Sons of Freedom, a radical Doukhobor splinter group, and Verigin’s son, Peter Petrovich Verigin. According to both the Hannant article and the National Trust of Canada, the RCMP examined the son theory in 1963 and concluded there was too little evidence to confirm or refute it. Many Doukhobors believed the Canadian government might have been behind the blast, the Canadian Encyclopedia says, and it also cites Americans who feared a Doukhobor move to the United States. Hannant raises the possibility of Soviet involvement through Grishen.

Funeral services were held Nov. 2, 1924. The Canadian Encyclopedia says thousands attended, while the Hannant article and the National Trust of Canada put the crowd at about 7,000.

The Canadian Encyclopedia says the case remains unsolved. The Hannant article concludes that every possible explanation of the death is still only a theory. The explosion is also the subject of an online project in the Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History series, titled “Explosion on the Kettle Valley Line: Death of Peter Verigin.”

Verigin’s death was not the first deadly disaster on a Canadian railway to leave questions behind. Readers can compare it with our look at the Baptiste Creek rail disaster of 1854, and with other entries in our On This Day series.

Sources: The Canadian Encyclopedia (Peter Vasilevich Verigin); Doukhobor Heritage, reprint of Larry Hannant, “The Mysterious Death of Peter Verigin,” The Beaver, November 2004; National Trust of Canada.