winding
down our great summer vacation to Canada and Alaska, We decided to take in one
more tourist attraction. Billy Barker worked in England before he came to
Canada. He arrived in British Columbia in 1858 and made his way up
Williams Creek in 1861. He was a prospector by hobby and like most, eked
out a living at what ever he could. However Billy's life changed on August
17th, 1863 when 
he
hit pay dirt at forty feet below the surface and was instantly rich. He wintered
in Victoria, returning in the spring to find the town of Barkerville rising
around his company's rich claim. Thus the first Canadian gold rush was started,
almost a half a century before the great Klondike gold rush. Between 1862
and 1870, over 100,000 people traveled the Cariboo Wagon Road, to the gold
fields of Barkerville. Like Barker himself, who would sell his claim and
give much of his money away, the gold was soon gone and the once prosperous town
slipped into obscurity, only to rise like the Phoenix from the ashes to
become one of central British Columbia's leading attractions. Without
consideration for the dismal weather which produced an on and off drizzle, we
wandered down the three main streets taking in the some 120 heritage buildings
which have 
either
been restored or accurately reconstructed. Even with the season coming to
an end, the docents were everywhere acting out their parts of this once booming gold
town. With literally hundreds of buildings to explore we had to pick and
choose those to be reviewed. Early on we stopped by to check out one that
explained the Chinese presence in BC. The building was filled with old
Chinese artifacts and little tidbits of information about the rarely seen world
that lived in co-existence with its European dominated populations.
Supplying a bulk workforce during the gold rush days, the Chinese formed many
societies. The Chee Kung Tong or Chinese Freemasons grew out of the Hongmen
Secret Society in China, which was dedicated to the overthrow of the ruling
Ch'ing dynasty. The Chee Kang Tong was a prominent group in the Chariboo.
At least six stores in this town were recorded as being members. However
in Canada, the organization functioned
much as a benevolent society, taking care of its members and leading the
festivities on celebration days. Funds were collected from members and used for
a variety of purposes including construction work, hospital maintenance and
burial transfers. On the back street toward the end of the day, we ran into two of the best characters we have met in all the living museums we have traveled to. These two despicable characters had plans to sell us, and the others who had gathered a valuable gold mine. The comedy hour was as informative as it was humorous. The show had, as a backdrop and prop, one of the original gold mines, reconstructed in a most authentic manner. The structure consisted of a water flume which brought water up to the top of the structure. Then there was a rope operated elevator which used the water to create the left needed to remove the ore from the
mine
shaft which was some 25 feet underground. The water was also used to
supply the sluice box which ran out from the bottom of the
structure. Mixed into the delightful rhetoric these two were
producing was a myriad of information about this type of mining. As they
explained, the science of finding gold under ground is to understand how it got
there in the first place. Gold, which is often found in the rocks which
make up some mountains is washed away by rain and snow water. Placer gold
which is the paper thin flacks more commonly found is moved by water current
down stream. As gold is about 14 time as heavy as the gravel traveling with
it, it quickly found the bottom where it laid until nature moved the river.
The old river bed was then filled in by natural geological processes, which
places the
gold underground up to 50 feet down. Bedrock stops the gold's progression
down through the soil. Sooooo, a miner would dig a hole down to the
bedrock and then pick a direction he believes crossed the old path of the a
river. He would dig along until he crossed the gold laying on the bedrock,
and whallaa, he had hit a vane. He then turned in the direction of the
old river bed and the gold deposits. Having found the gold
is only the beginning. He then had to remove very heavy ore from the
tunnel and raise it to the top of the mine shaft. 
This is done, in this case, by constructing the ingenious structure before
us. Water is the required element to make it all come together. Hopefully
the present river bed was not far from the old one and water could be
diverted. and the water was then raised in the flume. Water weighs around 8 1/2
lbs per gallon so you can see the potential for using it as a power
source. Under the flume was an old wooden paddlewheel which had a rope
attached to a Polly that pulled the barrel up. At the front of the flume
was a sluice, laying on the ground, with ridges in it. The ore was place
in this sluice and water, by way of a bypass, was
allowed into the sluice to flush the gravel away, leaving the placer gold
laying against the small wooded ridges placed across the sluice. Laura was
invited to join in, and though the rain was continuing she pulled the water door
up and let the water over the ore. There was much more, to numerous to
mention in this fascinating historic place.