NOVEMBER 5 2003 OPINION 11 Photo Courtesy of BC Archives Collections - call number: A-03786 A Street Scene in Barkerville. Note the ghost dog on the boardwalk. By Roberta Woob Sitting here, staring at my recently returned midterms, I’m trying desperately to figure out what exactly the point of tests - especially midterms - is. Coming from a student who didn’t do as well as she would have if she had put any effort into studying, I sup- pose you might see that as an unjustifiable question. However, open your mind and look at this from my perspective. You go to all your classes, write all your papers, and you usually read all texts required. However, sometimes you slip up on that reading; it’s unlikely that you’ve spent hours reading newspapers for that Political Science class and you didn’t spend all last night watching the special on neurons on the discovery channel that your biology professor enthusiastically suggested. Still, this isn’t exactly the picture of a bad student. Getting papers in on time is important, right? Writing wicked-awesome, gram- matically correct, ridiculously well worded, not to mention superbly researched papers is worth some- thing, isn’t it? Well it should be! However, instead of making these papers, papers that you spend so much time learning about, worth significant marks, educators feel the need to make tests. Horrible, miserable, absolutely worthless sheets of paper filled with questions -about every: little detail that shouldn’t ever have to be memorised by anybody. You consider yourself lucky if you get Midterms Suck Big Hairy Bunny Balls short answer or essay questions; at least you can bullshit your way through those with some nutbar answers that vaguely have some- thing to do with the question. Then there is the dreaded multiple choice. Those painful questions that are so specific and you only have twenty percent, twenty-five if you are lucky, chance of getting them right. How do you study for those ter- rible, terrible times? I suppose that you could spend hours going over those notes you took in class (ya know..? the ones with the doo- dles on the side of the page?) and reread that textbook (that is, if you read it in the first place) and if you were really excited you might sit down with your professor and dis- cuss all the things that you ‘just happened to be wondering about’. But who does that? Really?! I suppose that if you did do all of the above, and you happened to be really, urtusually good at sitting down and spitting out all you know about “the significance of the War of 1812 and the important political figure involved”, then it’s possible that you might do well enough. For the rest of us, what are tests supposed to prove? But 20-60% of your grade is dependent on your doing well on those ridiculous experiments that professors love to inflict. What are WHERE IS THE SANITY? WHERE IS THE DIGNITY? Send a Postcard to the Premier Help to protest the privatization of Barkerville 1858 - Gold is discovered at the mouth of the Fraser River. Prospectors from around the world arrive in the colony of BC and travel north along the Fraser River in search of gold. 1861 - William Dietz discovers gold in the Cariboo in a creek that still bears his name: Williams Creek 1862 - William (Billy) Barker hits paydirt at Williams Creek. Word of the discovery spreads, and Barkerville is born. 1863 - The first Chinese tong (“hall”) in Canada is established in Barkerville. The Chee Kung Tong, among other activities, financially assists the overthrow of the Manchu Dynasty in China. 1865 - The Cariboo Waggon Road is completed: Commissioned by Governor James Douglas and designed by the Royal Engineers, the road carries miners and supplies from Yale (at the mouth of the Fraser River) to Barkerville. Today, you might know the path they took as Highway 97. 1868 - September 16: A fire destroys most of Barkerville; only Chinatown survives. Within six weeks, ninety percent of the buildings are rebuilt. 1871 - The population of Barkerville pe at over ten thousand; as many as half are Chinese. 1871 - British Columbia enters into the Dominion of Canada. 1872 - The gold boom comes to an end and Barkerville establishes itself as a strong community. 1895 - 1910 - Second gold boom. 1930s and 40s - Hard-rock mining replaces placer mining; the Cariboo Goldquartz company town of Wells eclipses Barkerville. 1958 - The Barkerville townsite is designated a provincial heritage site. Total declared placer gold production in the area: $1 billion CND. Interested? Check out our feature on the. privatization of Barkerville. See p.14 Ee ee ee ee en ee eee Barenite has been under the jurisdiction of several ministries since it became a provincially operated historic site in 1958. In the last fifteen years, three separate reviews have all concluded that Barkerville would benefit if it was managed at arms length from Victoria. The ‘Barkerville Futures’ process, that resulted from politi- cal labbying by the Friends of Barkerville in the early 1990s, recom- mended more local control in the management of the site. Since then, Barkerville has been seriously affected by government cutbacks. { urge you to take the following steps in regard to Barkerville’s future: Fund and implement a strategic plan that will allow for a smooth and workable transition between management authorities. Restore fund- ing levels to those of the early 1990s. Create a stable business com- munity by engaging in long term contracts with Barkerville business- es as soon as possible. Please do not allow the quality and integrity of the site to diminish any further. Barkerville is one of Canada's price- ~ less gems; the buildings, artifacts and archival documents are fre-- placeable. SIGNATURE BUSINESS/ASSOCIATION NAME. (PLEASE PRINT} Premier Gordon Campbell PO Box 9041 Stn. Prov. Gov't. Victoria, BC V8W 9E1