Veregin is a

special service area Communities in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada, include Incorporation (municipal government), incorporated municipalities, Unincorporated area#Canada, unincorporated communities and First Nations in Canada, First Nations communities. Types ...

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...

, Canada. It is located 50 kilometres northeast of

Yorkton Yorkton is a city located in south-eastern Saskatchewan, Canada. It is about north-west of Winnipeg and south-east of Saskatoon and is the sixth largest city in the province. Yorkton was founded in 1882 and incorporated as a city in 1928. ...

, and 10 km to the west of

Kamsack Kamsack, Saskatchewan, Canada, is a town in the Assiniboine River Valley, where the Whitesand River, Saskatchewan, Whitesand River joins the Assiniboine River. It is northeast of Yorkton. Saskatchewan Highway 8, Highway 8 and Saskatchewan Highw ...

. Veregin was incorporated as a village in 1912 and was named after the Veregin Station (built 1908), and misspelled by the railroad when it earlier built the misspelled Veregin Siding in 1904, named after Peter V. Verigin.Village of Veregin
(Doukhobor Genealogy Website) The Veregin railway station is served by

Via Rail Via Rail Canada Inc. (), operating as Via Rail or Via (stylized as VIA Rail), is a Canadian Crown corporation that operates intercity passenger rail service in Canada. As of December 2023, Via Rail operates 406 trains per week across eight ...

History

Veregin owes its existence to the

Doukhobor The Doukhobors ( Canadian spelling) or Dukhobors (; ) are a Spiritual Christian ethnoreligious group of Russian origin. They are known for their pacifism and tradition of oral history, hymn-singing, and verse. They reject the Russian Ortho ...

s, in the middle of whose 1899

block settlement A block settlement (or bloc settlement) is a particular type of land distribution which allows settlers with the same ethnicity to form small colonies. This settlement type was used throughout western Canada between the late 19th and early 20th c ...

, known as the South Doukobor Colony its future site happened to be, and the

Canadian Northern Railway The Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) was a historic Canada, Canadian transcontinental railway. At its 1923 merger into the Canadian National Railway , the CNoR owned a main line between Quebec City and Vancouver via Ottawa, Winnipeg, and Edmonto ...

, whose new line (between Kamsack and Canora) crossed the reserve in 1904. The site of the future village of Veregin — which also happened to be the closest point where the new rail line came to the village of Otradnoye (some 10 km north of Veregin) where the residence and headquarters of the Doukhobor leader, Peter Verigin was at the time — was chosen as the place for the railway station to serve the Doukhobor reserve. Verigin1907

The new station, originally known as Veregin Siding, and since 1908 as Veregin station, was named after Peter Verigin. (''Veregin'' appears a common spelling variant of the surname ''Verigin'', fairly common among the Doukhobors. In fact, the village name is spelt as ''Verigin on the letterhead of Peter Verigin-led

Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood (CCUB) () was the main spiritual and economic organization of the majority of Doukhobors from Russia in Canada, followers of Peter Verigin, Peter V. Verigin, from its incorporation in 1917 until its bankr ...

in the 1920s, and, on occasions, in the report of BC Royal Commission of 1912.Report of Royal Commission on matters relating to the sect of Doukhobors in the province of British Columbia, 1912
/ref>) A new village started to be growing near the Veregin train station. Peter Verigin moved his residence and the headquarters to Veregin from Otradnoye in 1904,. The BC Royal Commission report of 1912 mentions the village (spelt as ''Verigin'') as the site of what it terms "the head office of the Doukhobor Community". Veregin soon became an important

settlement in the region. Brickworks,

grain elevator A grain elevator or grain terminal is a facility designed to stockpile or store grain. In the grain trade, the term "grain elevator" also describes a tower containing a bucket elevator or a pneumatic conveyor, which scoops up grain from a lowe ...

s, a floor mill were built there. While the early annual general meetings of the Doukhobor Community continued to take place in the village of Nadezhda, some 10 km to the north of Veregin, Veregin became the site of the annual meetings no later than January 1910. When the Peter Verigin-led Doukhobor Community was legally incorporated as the

(CCUB) in 1917, the headquarters of the organization was based in the village of Veregin as well, even though the majority of the CCUB members had already moved to British Columbia by that time. CCUB headquarters remained in Veregin until its relocation to British Columbia in 1931.Koozma J. Tarasof
Spirit Wrestlers: Doukhobor Pioneers’ Strategies for Living
(2002) With the bankruptcy of CCUB in 1937–38, the facilities owned by the community were sold or destroyed. In 1980, the 1917-built Verigin's mansion was restored. In 2006, it and a few other Doukhobor buildings have been designated a

National Historic Site of Canada National Historic Sites of Canada () are places that have been designated by the federal Minister of the Environment on the advice of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada (HSMBC), as being of national historic significance. Parks C ...

under the name " Doukhobors at Veregin". Two major fires in the community on January 22 and 29, 2004, threatened the viability of the village. Veregin's status as a village was dissolved on December 31, 2006 when it was absorbed into the surrounding Rural Municipality of Sliding Hills No. 273 as a special service area.

Demographics

In the

2021 Census of Population The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...

conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; ), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and culture. It is headquartered in ...

, Veregin had a population of 47 living in 28 of its 43 total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of 45. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

References

{{coord, 51, 35, 00, N, 102, 04, 53, W, region:CA_type:city, display=title Designated places in Saskatchewan Former villages in Saskatchewan Special service areas in Saskatchewan Sliding Hills No. 273, Saskatchewan Populated places disestablished in 2006 Ethnic enclaves in Saskatchewan Division No. 9, Saskatchewan