Time travelling at Blaine Lake will not be possible this year at the Doukhobor Dugout House.
Thanks to COVID-19, founder Brenda Cheveldayoff announced this week, they will not open the national heritage site located eight kilometers southeast of Blaine Lake.
With public health restrictions in place, the site would not be able to accommodate the 250-300 people they receive each Saturday they are open while keeping to safety guidelines set out by the province.
People are transported to 1899, Cheveldayoff said, and that can’t be done when you have to keep two metres apart.
“(The visitors) don’t just come to the tour, and then leave. They go into the other historical buildings, they stay, have some Doukhobor bread or picnics and visit and they linger around for a while. There are always crowds and crowds of people there.”
For Cheveldayoff, the site is so much more than a piece of Saskatchewan history but a piece of her own history as a descendant of the Russian Doukhobors that escaped religious persecution in Russia to settle in Saskatchewan. In 1899, 8,000 Doukhobours immigrated to Canada and while some moved on to British Columbia, a core group settled near Blaine Lake. For five years, the group lived in dugout houses carved into the North Saskatchewan River ravine before building a more permanent village nearby. A single dugout that was just over 400 square feet housed nine families, according to the site’s website.
Cheveldayoff and the 12-14 volunteers bring the site to life each summer with re-enactments and authentic period costumes with visitors having the opportunities to pull the plow and wash clothes the way the Doukhobours did.
Cheveldayoff also said they are unsure on whether they will be able to hire a summer student. There is still work that needs to be done, she said, considering they can’t just leave the site vacant for an entire season. For the last few years, they have taken advantage of the Canada Summer Jobs Program but have not heard back whether they will be receiving that funding and offering a deserving student some employment for the summer.
“You don’t just walk away and close the door. There’s maintenance to do and there are artifacts to deal with and there's a lot of stuff that goes on there. It's really absolutely frustrating,” Cheveldayoff said.
In 2005, the site became a Provincial Heritage Property and later in 2013 became a National Historic Site of Canada. The 2020 summer season would have been the 18th year of the site being open.
Events that were planned for the 2020 season will be pushed ahead to next summer. This includes a ribbon cutting for the newest building, the Prayer Home, in honour of Donna Gay Choppe who passed away earlier this year and was a dear friend of the Doukhobor Dugout House Heritage Site.
While Cheveldayoff does not know the full impact the season closure will have on the site, she encouraged everyone to donate to the site through the website. Anyone who brings a charitable donation receipt to the site next season will receive a free tour.
