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Introduction
"I may as well here state that Barkerville was the principal mining town in British Columbia, built entirely of wood, and situated in a valley with Williams Creek running through it, surrounded on all sides by a sea of mountains..."
- photographer Frederick Dally 1868
With over 120+ buildings and displays, period merchants, 'residents', live theatre and interpretation and the largest catalogued collection of 19th Century artifacts in Western Canada, Dally's brief description, accurate though it may still be, belies the town is more than wooden flumes and false front buildings, more than a magical valley in a sea of mountains, more still than all the echoes of the past that reverberate along the plank boardwalks and into the forest above the creek...
Barkerville is greater than the sum of all its parts, past, present and future. It is in so many ways, the birthplace of the colony cum province, heart of a wild land yet untamed, and a place that needs be experienced firsthand...
From his seminal work, Barkerville: A Gold Rush Experience, author Richard Thomas Wright illustrates a scene familiar to any who have trod these streets...
"I arrive here in the valley of Williams Creek on a sunny day cooled by clouds that hang over the Cariboo Mountains. A breeze rustles down the creek, shimmering the cottonwoods, quaking the aspens. The town is bustling, for this day marks the end of a depressing wet period. The warm air has dried the street so I can walk the roadway rather than the boardwalk that fronts the buildings.
Ahead, a woman's skirt sweeps the street and raises little clouds of dust. Up the Valley of Flags I walk, past St. Saviour's Anglican Church, past Overlander John Bowron's house, the tinshop, the blacksmith's shop. The sweet smells of sourdough waft from the bakery, and a squirrel bounces across the street with a pecan nut - stolen from Mason & Daly's General Store..."
Sample the sourdough, relive British justice, take etiquette lessons, invest in a mine or simply tred quietly through one of the oldest Chinatowns in North America. Meet the characters that peopled Williams Creek; Billy Barker who made his fortune but died a pauper; 'Hanging' Judge Begbie, first Justice of the colony; John 'Cariboo' Cameron, who led a colourful yet tragic life; Fanny Bendixon, an ambitious madam and entrepreneur of over 300lbs and others...
Our vibrant and lively history, young though it may be, is revealed in the exploration of bygone eras and nowhere embodied more vividly than here. Today, we invite you to wander down the roads of another age,