04 Museum anp Art NotEs

Barkerville, August J0, 1929

By Joun Hoste, Provincial Librarian and Archivist

INAUGURAL CEREMONY From A PorNnt IN FRONT OF THE WEATHER-BEATEN OLD CHURCH

UGUST 10th, 1929, was an outstanding day in the history of the ancient gold

mining town of Barkerville. For weeks an energetic committee of Barkerville

and Quesnel residents had been preparing for the ceremonies attending the
unveiling of the cairn erected by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board to mark
the completion of the building of the great waggon road to the Cariboo gold fields in
1865. To the outsider the degree of enthusiasm shown by residents in these small
towns, with regard to the celebration, was simply amazing. No detail appeared to have
been forgotten, and, on the morning of the great day, Barkerville, after several hours
of heavy rain, simply shone and glittered with pristine freshness. The one street
seemed to have been swept and garnished; the picturesque old houses looked as if
they had had their faces and stoops spring-cleaned for the occasion, and the long
street was gay with many flags. The air itself was like champagne, and everybody
radiated brightness and cheer.

On the evening of the 8th, when the writer entered the romantic town, all was
still and silent as the grave. The only living objects visible were a few cows, horses
and chickens wandering up and down the street. Never having had the privilege of
visiting Barkerville before, although knowing something of its history, the writer’s
first impressions of the town were delightful in the extreme. At first sight the little
town, viewed from a point in front of the weather-beaten old church, looks as if it
had been erected overnight for the purposes of a moving picture. Surely there is