Fun Places: Barkerville, BC

Barkerville is a wonderfully restored gold mining town, full of fun places to explore. It was rainy the morning we were there, and we were on our way home (the ol' horse headed to the barn, and all that...) so we only spent about 3 hours there. I think, in nice weather, it would be a place you could spend the whole day! There are lots of things going on at different times of the day, and even though we were there in September, after the big tourist time, there were still many activities listed in their information. We just made a pretty fast "pass through" and saw as much as we could in the time we had. Meals were expensive in the restaurants, so we didn't venture into them (our RV was in the parking lot, so it would have been pretty silly to spend a lot on a meal), but the other little shops weren't too bad. The Court House was a hike up the trail, and would have added an hour or more to our stop, so we didn't do it -- besides, the rain was coming down pretty good, and we didn't want to get any more wet than we already were. At least in town we could duck into one of the buildings that were open. Two of the old homes are now B&B's; it would probably make a fun place to stay!

We first went to Barkerville back in September 1973 with Byron & Sharon Gerlach. It didn't cost anything to get in then, and we were there the last day it was open for the season. I remember we enjoyed really good hamburgers in one of the restaurants - much less expensive back then! It's changed a lot - much more of it restored - but some of it is still the same -- like the Dentist office. It was fun to see what we remembered, and what "new" parts have been restored since we were there 35 years ago.

I have a ton of pictures from here, but obviously couldn't put them ALL in :) There are definitely enough here to give you a good idea of what it's like.

Billy Barker, who started it all...

A couple of Main Street shots...


The 2 churches...

This particular church is privately owned, as is one of the larger houses, and is still in use today.


Ride, anyone?



Everyone who worked there dressed the part (obviously!). They interacted with groups that were taking tours, put on shows in the theater, the school master taught classes, etc....


The School House...


The Candy Shoppe - yummy ice cream and homemade fudge here!...

One of the Livery Stables...


These next 2 pictures were taken of an upstairs hotel room. The rooms were originally accessed by a stairway that was located in the building next door (for whatever reason), and when that building was torn down many years ago the rooms were just forgotten up there. Recently, an outdoor stairway was built along the side of the hotel so restoration could be started on the upstairs areas. They found many of the rooms still had some furniture in them, and personal items like pocket watches etc., were found in drawers. Only one or two of the rooms are finished, but they are working on the others.


The Gold Commissioner's Office...

The Mercantile...

The General Store...


The dentist office...

A sample of some of the cabins/houses...




Inside some of the cabins and houses...



Some shots from China Town area....



Some miscellaneous pictures...
This is an elaborate sluice box set-up - the water was diverted with this contraption, and run through some giant sluice boxes, then channeled back to the river...

Some old machinery...