In the early 1900s, some regarded the area as Waterloo, but that settlement is generally placed farther south in today's lower Ootischenia.
[2] In 1908, the Doukhobors bought 11 square kilometres (2,700 acres), which leader Peter Verigin named the village of Brilliant, describing the river as a clear diamond.
Brilliant, the Doukhobor headquarters for Canada, included a jam factory, grain elevator, fruit packing shed, general store/post office, and train station.
[3] Surplus wheat grown by communes on the Prairies came by railway boxcar either loose or as sacks of flour.
[2] In March 2021, the Ministry of Forests in partnership with the Sinixt Confederacy and Colville Confederated Tribes put restrictions and physical barriers in place to stop motorized vehicles from continuing to degrade the cultural and ecological values of the lower Brilliant area, also referred to as Brilliant Flats, through mud bogging and dirt biking.