1974 Helen Verigin interviews Mr. John Fomenoff

[John arrived on the the first ship, Lake Huron in 1899]

I remember the Brilliant bridge being built. At the time I was working at the Brilliant sawmill. The Doukhobors hewed out the road leading up to it and then cemented blocks, strung the cable and planked it. The agreement was labour to be ours and the government was to supply the materials. When they were hewing the road out a strange thing happened. A rock at least twenty tons slid from above right over the working crew, everyone ran except John Samsonoff who wasn’t fast enough to pick up his crowbar and run. The rock slid right over him and over the other bank into the river. The other men ran up to him and he got up and walked away. After investigating they found that as the road wasn’t finished the rocks jutting out of the road were high enough that they balanced the big rock and left enough space underneath for John, not to even touch him. The crowbar was like a pretzel.

When they were blasting for the bridge, the dynamite was cold and damp. Sometimes it would explode and sometimes not. The men started drying it in the electric pump house that was on the Ooteshenie side. John Sherbinin warned them that it was dangerous, yet the men continued to do it.

One day the dynamite exploded in the pump house and some were injured, some died. Strukoff was blasted right into the door. Other men that were in there were John Strukoff, his brother, Alex Reibin, Mike Labentsoff. He was deaf from then on and four died.

We hitched a team at the sawmill and went to help. They were bringing out the wounded and the dead. Who knows what really happened there . . .