A Price Tag on Heritage
Operating and maintaining Western Canada’s largest
historic site: $2 million.
Preserving British Columbia’s heritage: priceless.
...SO just what Is the provincial government doing?

By Stephanie Wilson

On October 22, 2003, Queen Victoria (played by
Barkerville interpreter Danette Boucher) travelled
to her namesake city to drink tea with Premier
Gordon Campbell and discuss funding cuts to
Barkerville Historic Town. Why would the power-
ful former monarch of the Dominion of Canada
care about Barkerville?

Barkerville has never been a ghost town. It
remained a place of residence from the time a city
grew around Billy Barker’s discovery in 1862,
through the transfer of administration to the
provincial government in 1958, until 1979. In the
past ten years, an estimated one million people
have visited the Historic Town, over thirty thou-
sand students have participated in its school pro-
gram, and approximately three hundred UNBC
students have taken the annual history course in
Barkerville.

At the town site, one hundred original buildings
still stand and twenty-two buildings have been
reconstructed. There are approximately fifty-seven
thousand catalogued artifacts and almost five hun-
dred thousand uncatalogued artifacts in
Barkerville, including the most extensive collection
of Chinese artifacts in North America. Clearly,

Barkerville is worth preserving. Yet in September,
the provincial government laid off ten of sixteen
unionised full-time staff members, including main-
tenance and security. “This is probably a case of
union-breaking. They might contract [the work] to
private companies, but saying that would crucify
them,” explained Barkerville business owner Rob
Rummel. It is the significant cut to the site’s main-
tenance and security that has worried. “Insurance
rates for the businesses might go up due to less on-
site security. The overall appearance of the site
might go down due to less maintenance staff...it’s
the site itself we are most worried about, [such as]
damage due to snow,” said business owner
Thomas Schoen.

All twenty-nine provincial heritage sites have
undergone or are undergoing a devolution of man-
agement. Devolution of management simply
means that the site will be managed by a “local”
group as opposed to the provincial government.
“The process has gone well - except for
Barkerville,” said George Abbott, the Minister of
Community, Aboriginal, and Women’s Services. He
pointed out that the provincial government has
already signed a memorandum of understanding
with the Friends of Fort Steele. (Fort Steele is BC’s

second-largest heritage site.)

“We knew that Barkerville would probably be
the most difficult. Operations have been suffering
[due to] low revenues and high operation costs,”
Abbott explained.

Two years ago, the provincial government began
to accept private sector bids for the management of
Barkerville. The District of Wells was the only pre-
qualified proponent, but the District decided
against continuing the proposal process in July,
2003. They felt that operating Barkerville would be
unsustainable given the framework that they
would have to work in.

The provincial government has stated that cur-
rent funding levels are unsustainable. Barkerville
had been receiving a three hundred percent annual
subsidy totalling approximately $1.1 million dol-
lars. That funding has now been cut to $750 000, a
two hundred percent subsidy, and will only be
guaranteed for the next five years.

According to the Barkerville Coalition,
Barkerville has been operating on a $1.7 million
dollar budget (not including capital improvements
and maintenance). Under the new plan,
Barkerville’s budget will be cut to around $1.2 mil-
lion: