Barkerville, BC

On Friday I decided to take the day off and drove 2 1/2 hours with the kids to spend the day at Barkerville.

Barkerville is an amazing town which was is located in central British Columbia. It was founded in the 1860's during the cariboo gold rush by Billy Barker. During the course of 8 years over 100,000 people travelled the Cariboo Wagon Trail to Barkerville in search of gold. Would you believe this was once the largest city west of Chicago and north of San Francisco? It's true!

Then

Now

Another smaller gold rush took place in the area around the 1930's. Barkerville was a ghost town after that until 1957 when the Provincial Government began reconstructing it as a historic site. Today two 'streets' have been reconstructed, but in it's heyday most miners would have been living in tents.

When the children and I arrived we went to the Wake Up Jake restaurant for lunch and afterwards began to explore the sites, stores and history of the area. The kids didn't want to see the live performance at the Theatre Royal, so we went to the schoolhouse and had a 50 minute lesson by 'Miss Clarkston' as it would have been in the 1870's.

After the lesson, the kids visited the confectionary and then the bakery where we reserved two loaves of the famous sourdough bread that we would take home with us later in the day.

The weather held out and it was just a perfect temperature for exploring. I hadn't been to Barkerville for several years and was pleased at the new exhibits that had opened since then. One was of all the old bottles found at the site along with a display of jewellery and clothing of the time. One of the old houses had been restored to it's 1930's appearance when it was a house of prosititution.

Over the years I have visited Barkerville many, many times - and I know that I will back again.