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Published: July 15th 2005
Barkerville Main Street
This is just a small fragment of the street, which goes on for many blocks.We left Prince Rupert around noon, and headed eastward towards Smithers. The scenery from Prince Rupert to Terrace was some of the most beautiful we have seen yet on this trip. There is
nothing along the road between Prince Rupert and Terrace except scenery, and the highway was nearly empty. It made me wonder from time to time how long you might wait for help here if you had car trouble! Might be another of those nights passed by the side of the road. From Terrace, we kept going straight on, thinking we might stop around Smithers, but by the time we got there, we felt we were on a roll, and just kept going. We drove until about 7 pm, and ended up camping at a small provincial campground about 30 km west of Vanderhoof. The mosquitoes and blackflies were plentiful. Katherine never left the camper once we set up, and Roberta made one or two very brief and hasty calls to the washroom across the road. Some of the blackflies were small enough to get through the pop top screens, so we kept them shut. We turned in early, and were up before 6:00, ready to leave. We discovered
One of the local services
I tried to convince Roberta to have some dental work done -- at these prices who could resist. But she declined.... the campground gate was locked so we had to go wake up the poor staff member, who was fortunately sleeping on site, to get him to let us out. While I kind of like the idea of keeping the riff-raff out in such a remote location late at night, I wondered what people did if they truly woke in the middle of the night with a need or just a yen to do some driving. I guess next time we’ll need to notice when such gates exist and inquire when they are locked.
July 13. Roberta here. We had a delicious breakfast in a heritage OK Café in Vanderhoof and I drove on from there, finally catching my stride driving. I enjoyed driving while Katherine had a nap and latter knitted. It was a beautiful drive, often along rivers and lakes. At Prince George I filled the tank and Katherine took the wheel to Quesnel and Barkerville. We visited most of Barkerville and had a delicious lunch at the restaurant in Chinatown (Long Duck Tong). After that we drove a few miles back to Wells and settled in an RV place that’s attached to a casino and bar. I played the one-armed bandit with 16 quarters and lost 8 of them.
Barkerville to McBride.
July 14. Today we went back to Barkerville to visit the rest of it, sat in on a storytelling about the gold rush in the area, talked with the storytellers, viewed a video about the inhabitants of Barkerville, including Billy Barker, who struck gold but died poor. Chinatown interested me a lot, as did the house and story of the madam, who took very good care of her girls. She made sure a doctor checked their health every month - health certificates and some money were found under some floor boards of this house.
Katherine here. Sorry for all this voice shifting! We both seem to have a lot to say!
Barkerville was definitely worth a visit. It’s much bigger than I had envisaged. There are dozens of buildings, and all within very convenient walking distance from each other (which must have come in very handy when people were actually living in them!). So doing the town in a full day is quite feasible. It’s fascinating to see how simply the people lived in such a harsh climate. Simple and very compact wood frame dwellings, with single glaze glass, no insulation, and wood stoves for heating. I guess they were small for a reason - otherwise heating would have been prohibitively expensive in terms of how much wood they had to cut. They get 30 feet of snow in winter in this area, and it packs down to about 10 feet thick in the woods. Hard to imagine how people got out their front doors. Though many buildings are raised a few feet above ground level, it’s not 10 feet by any stretch. And it’s remote - 80 miles to Quesnel, the nearest large city. Lots of wildlife in the area. We saw a red fox right in town. And a mischievous grizzly made it impossible to visit parts of the site outside the immediate town.
We left Barkerville about noon, and headed back towards Prince George. As we approached Quesnel, we had a close encounter with a deer - it jumped out from the left side of the road right in front of the car. I slammed on the brakes and missed it by what I’m sure was only inches. I don’t recall seeing legs at any point - just a body. In fact, it looked like it had been shot out in front of the car by a big gun. I’m sure it was a deer, by the shape and color of the body. Once past that point, I glanced into my rear view mirror, fully expecting to see a body by the side of the road, but there was no deer, so it has evidently escaped into the woods. Gave me quite a turn - good thing the road was poor and I was driving very slowly. Once we reached Prince Rupert, we headed east on highway 16.
Along this route, we had some of the best wildlife sightings we’ve had yet. (Not counting all the deer in the Queen Charlottes). About 10-20 miles west of McBride, we spotted a large black bear foraging on a small cliff at the right side of the road. East of McBride, we saw many deer and an eagle. The most amazing sighing was a huge beaver, dragging a large branch across the road. I first spotted him on the left, couldn’t tell for sure what it was until I got closer, and I had to come to a full stop to let him finish his journey. He was a really big beaver, and very dark in color. We saw many moose warnings, but nary a moose in sight.
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Margo
non-member comment
Chilcoot territory
Your blog is reviving many lovely memories of travelling in the area. Did you visit the little church in Barkerville? Did you notice the space between the boards forming the walls in the cabins, spaces big enough for snow to enter? None of the history indicated that those spaces were ever filled with moss or covered with branches during the winter; one can easily envision the inhabitants waking up under a blanket of snow as well as their own blankets or bear skins. Over 30 years have passed since I last travelled the road from Prince George to Barkerville, Quesnel and McBride but your description indicates that very little, if anything, has changed. Lovely country. Incidentally, if one has car trouble on those seemingly isolated roads, it's amazing how quickly someone shows up and wonderful that, if the driver is a local, s/he will stop to help. Personal experience speaking. Keep enjoying the trip. Can't wait to see the rest of your photos one day. Love to you both, Margo