Today’s subject we briefly touch on a little known chapter in the province’s history, the life of Anastasia Holoboff (or Holuboff, sometimes Holobova, less common Golubova), aka Anastasia Lords. She was the one time spiritual leader of an little known Alberta based Doukhobor group and is interred near the former village that once bore her name. The location here is an “Off the Beaten Path” back road on the vast plains southeast of Calgary, a remote, peaceful place to spend eternity.
The Doukhobors are a Christian based religious group that originated in the 1800s (if not a bit earlier) in Southern Russia. That region today encompasses parts of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine. Fleeing persecution in their home country, large groups of them settled (mostly) in present day Northern Saskatchewan and a bit later South-Central British Columbia (a couple small settlements were also founded in Southwest Alberta.). They lived a communal lifestyle, at least in the beginning, but later abandoned that practice.
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Leading the British Columbia group was the charismatic and often times controversial Peter “Lordly” Verigin. Arriving in Canada in late 1902, he was assassinated in 1924. The railway car he was riding in, near Farron BC, was torn apart by an explosion. His murder is still unsolved to this day.
Peter’s long time common-law partner was Anastasia (born 1885 and who accompanied him to Canada in in the early 1900s), and with his untimely passing, was believed to be the natural successor to his leadership. Instead, one of Peter’s sons was brought over from Russia. Unhappy with that direction, soon after Anastasia and a breakaway group of followers left the region, settling in in a remote corner of Alberta, near the present day community of Arrowwood. The town took the name Anastasia Village, after their new leader, and was established in 1926.
Officially the group was known as the “Lordly Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood”. Some records, for reasons unknown, omit the “Lordly” reference.
The town and its people, some one hundred and sixty souls, for a time thrived. Homes were built, as was a school, and a communal farm established. The future held promise. Within a few short years however, it began to unravel. Poor crops, the effects of the great depression, all took their toll. An exodus began with more families leaving with each passing year.
By World War Two the colony was essentially abandoned. Anastasia Lords retained her leadership until the end and in fact continued to live at Anastasia Village, along with a long time companion, her cousin, for many years afterwards. She died in 1965. I understand she never had children.
The cemetery at which she spends eternity had its first burial in 1928 and is located just north of the former village colony and not far from the old railway line. It’s still maintained and used to this day by descendants of the Anastasia Doukhobor Community. The name Verigin shows up in on numerous grave markers. Many relatives of Peter “Lordly” Verigin, some brothers included, once lived at Anastasia Village. A long time companion of Anastasia, her cousin, was also a Verigin.
Anastasia, before she became “Lords” (with the move to Alberta) had many variants of her last name. It seems no one could decide on the correct form, but Holoboff appears the most common. While with Peter she’s sometimes refereed to as Anastasia “Lordly” Holoboff (or some variation of those other last name spellings), similar in form to his title. Does adding Lords or Lordly to one’s name maker them a better person religiously or is it presumptuous? I’m thinking a little bit of the latter here folks.
Most of the writing on Anastasia’s grave maker is in traditional Russian Cyrillic. It reads, roughly translated: “Here is resting in peace Anastasia Lords, born on April 21, 1885 in Russia and passed away on November 24th 1965. She was true follower of Christianity”.
Outside a large communal barn, and he cemetery we visited, there is little left to remind us that Anastasia Village was ever here. Many of the old houses and other out buildings remained in place until recently but for reasons unknown, were torn down a few years back. A sad loss. It’s like the place never existed.
That’s a fascinating history of the Doukhobors in Alberta. I’ve read about them in Saskatchewan and BC and I knew there was some presence in Southern Alberta. However this is the first blog or other information that I’ve seen on Alberta. It’s strange that they seem to have otherwise skipped this province. I find Doukhobors to be an interesting people and yet they are not very well known.
Few realize that they had an Alberta presence, albeit a small one across two groupings, well separated and both relatively short lived. With family connections to that culture (Saskatchewan Doukhobors) it’s always been an interest here too. Yes, little known are they.
Hmmm, that post is more about the colony verses us speaking of the person. It’s always highly recommended one cite specific passages, and not a whole page, when suggesting fixes. Still, we looked through that piece and didn’t see anything out of place when comparing ours to it. Can you elaborate?
We used to do something called the "pointless challenge" 🤪 and miss those days. It was so much silly fun and often frustrating as heck. In these we'd invite people to send in random photos of obscure locations, but not give any information, and then we'd track where it was and shoot something similar.
Most of these came from old family collections, as was the case here. Anyone up to resurrecting the series?
In hindsight, why didn't we pose someone in our shot?
Pointless: “Devoid of meaning (or) senseless” Merriam-Webster.
If you like what we do and want to support this ongoing project (12 years now), go here: https://www.BIGDoer.com/help-the-society/ Thanks to Connie for making this post possible.
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: ca1970 and 2014. Posted by Connie.
Captured on a cold, cold day many years ago. We've been passing this old house for decades and it's little changed in that time. At some point we expect to drive by and it'll be gone.
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: 2017. Posted by Connie.
When retired old railway cars usually get cut up for scrap. Sometimes, however, they find their way into the hands of the general public or whomever. Flat cars make good bridges, and boxcars can be transformed into storage buildings and the like. Case in point here. We see them used like this often enough and in this case, it's part of a corral.
Incidentally, this boxcar dates from 1950 and this was found by tracing the old road number, which is still visible.
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: 2017. Posted by Connie.
This central Alberta racetrack was never a commercial operation but instead just a fun place for car enthusiasts in the area to get together. Early '70s or thereabouts and it only lasted a few years. Even thought it's been abandoned for that long, there is no doubt what was here.
You know we like the the obscure stuff and this one fits the bill perfectly. Found by accident while backroad cruising and the history comes thanks to local car guy Mike.
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: 2022. Posted by Connie.
On top of little Myrtle Mountain in the Kimberley (BC) Nature Park.
There's some good wilderness fun to be had here and nice views as you can see, but the real reason we came is mining history. The whole area near the ski hill was extensively worked over a century ago and we were looking for evidence of this. We didn't find much in the area searched, but it's a big chunk of property and we hope to return to cover more ground again soon. Of all the subjects we cover, mining related is a favourite.
Still, it was a good hike and that can't be bad. Look to the comments for more info 👇.
Exploring nature and history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: 2022. Posted by Connie.
It's a strange curiosity in south Kananaskis, there on a hillside and we have no idea who created it. We asked around and no one's completely sure about its history. In the past it showed the Canada 100 logo from 1967 but in 2017 someone changed it to reflect the country's 150th.
That's our friend Emily from DanOCan.com having a look.
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: 2017. Posted by Connie.
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That’s a fascinating history of the Doukhobors in Alberta. I’ve read about them in Saskatchewan and BC and I knew there was some presence in Southern Alberta. However this is the first blog or other information that I’ve seen on Alberta. It’s strange that they seem to have otherwise skipped this province. I find Doukhobors to be an interesting people and yet they are not very well known.
Few realize that they had an Alberta presence, albeit a small one across two groupings, well separated and both relatively short lived. With family connections to that culture (Saskatchewan Doukhobors) it’s always been an interest here too. Yes, little known are they.
Some errors in your Anastasia Lords story:
See: doukhobor.org/Colony.html
Hmmm, that post is more about the colony verses us speaking of the person. It’s always highly recommended one cite specific passages, and not a whole page, when suggesting fixes. Still, we looked through that piece and didn’t see anything out of place when comparing ours to it. Can you elaborate?
History is so interesting!!
It sure is a passion with us.
Have you ever seen the doukhobor memorial above castlegar? Drove by it but never snapped a pic. Pretty well kept place.
Been when I was a kid. Perhaps it’s time for a revisit, me thinks.
We have the barn of Peter the Younger at Kootenai Brown Pioneer Village in Pincher Creek.
Cool! Never knew and I’ll have to check it out.
Just spent two hours on your site. Wonderful writing! The story of Anastasia is such a sad one.
It most certainly is.