On Saturday morning, we woke up nice and late. The first order of business was to walk next door to De Dutch Pannekoek House and order a delicious breakfast. I ordered a mixed dish of hash browns, syrup, and nibblies, and Jamie had a full-plate Pannekoek. That was a brunch, basically.

Then we got inside the rental car and began to drive south towards Barkerville. It took about an hour to drive to the first stop along the way, Quesnel, and during the drive over we enjoyed lots of open road and nice green scenery. There were several really sweet stretches of road. One, I recall, was a short four-lane section and we had the highway free and clear, no-one around us. Jamie let it go. We got a little over 140 km/h, but that was a short burst of speed before we went back to the limit :-) There were also picturesque stretches of road that we got a couple of pictures of, some of it involving rolling hill scenery.

As we arrived in Quesnel, we stopped at an A & W to grab a root beer. We both ordered the biggest mugs they had, and nursed those root beers down. So refreshing! In the past, my family and I would stop by at that exact same restaurant on the way up to Prince George to visit friends and relatives, so that particular A & W had some sort of sentimental value, I guess you could say :-)

We then drove east towards Barkerville from Quesnel, on a short detour off the main highway. The journey was half the fun, and we got a picture of some second-growth forest ahead of us, with a cliff-face to our left. This was pretty much par for the course, in terms of the kind of stuff we saw from the comfort of our car.

As we neared Barkerville, both us us had our picture taken by the entrance sign. There was a makeshift cart going through a tunnel, that we also had our picture taken from. It rocked back and forth, and you could sort of drive it in the tunnel, but not quite. For a short while, we felt like kids playing on toy trains.

Barkerville is, as the name says on the sign, a historic town that was famous for the gold rush days back in the late 1800's. During the gold rush, people came from all over Canada and the United States, and Barkerville was the 2nd largest city, aside from San Francisco, east of New York! Claims were staked all over the place, in creeks and surrouding gold mines. The town was just saturated in history. It felt like we were back in the gold rush days as we visited Barkerville, and it was like a trip back in time.

Barkerville consisted of three main streets, each carrying horse and carriage as the main mode of transportation. Along the sides of the streets were the various shops and bakeries, that we visited. The first building we entered, as we perused the streets of Barkerville, was a Miner's Boarding House. I stood aghast, in pure disbelief as to how cheap the prices were! They were advertising $12 per week of board, and $1.50 for single meals! That was a steal. Oops, I quickly realized that the prices were in 1860 dollars, and thus they would be pretty standard in current currency. But, even so, I impulsively had my wallet at the ready.

One to the next stop, the dentist's shop. Back in the gold rush days, there didn't exist things like fillings, drills, flouride, and all the other comforts of the modern dentist office. The procedure for getting a tooth pulled back then was very simple, and very painful. The dentist would simply yank it out with a pulling device, with no freezing. Both of us were extremely thankful that we didn't have to endure anything like that, as one can just imagine the resultant pain that would come from such an operation.

We then walked over to the doctors shop next door, and it was a similar operation, albeit a little more complicated. Towards the back of the wall were all kinds of surgical tools and probing devices. In the middle of the room lay an operating table, where a dummy say with a broken finger. It was assumed that he was a gold miner who had undergone some serious frostbite, or had cut off his finger with a chisel. Not a pretty sight, and this was the stuff that I'm sure doctors would have to deal with during the gold rush days.

After that, we walked on over to the local church, and stayed for an 'evening' prayer session (even though it was only 3 in the afternoon!) The church itself was designed beautifully, with a triangular shaped 'steeple' in front, as well as solid wood construction that had stood the test of time. It was refreshing to listen to the preacher talk, and it, once again, felt like being back in time.

We peeked our heads in to the blacksmith next, and observed as he shaped and formed molten metal to make horseshoes and other assorted products. Jamie asked about the temperature, and how hot the metal was, and the blacksmith said it was something on the order of 2000 degrees celcius! Unreal!

We treated ourselves to a pastry next door at the bakery shop, which was very busy. The girl serving us didn't expect to have a picture taken of her, but she joked around that taking a picture of her would be the highlight of our trip. Well, it may not have been the highlight, but her kind words certainly earned her a spot on myroadtrips.com!

We were delighted to step inside a building that had benches and a blessed fireplace. The heat from the fireplace was so warm and refreshing, in contrast to the bitter cold outside, that we got very comfortable sitting on the bench in front of it, and none of wanted to move. Fortunately, another traveller came up and offered to take our picture for us. We gratefully thanked her for that, and then enjoyed the fireplace for a lot longer, just taking the heat in!

As we were about to leave, we stumbled upon two miners staging a display for investors on their latest gold mine. They announced to us would-be investors, that there was a fortune to be made in this new gold mine, and their latest production machine would dig up buckets and buckets full of pannable gold, boosted by the water-wheel. Both of the miners were eager to share the details of how the production process worked, except one guy always corrected the other because he would get the terminology wrong. Then, the guy who had been corrected would get all angry and mad, and the two would get into a funny shouting match. Then, the first guy would say to his partner, "pssttt! We have investors here!" It was extremely amusing and entertaining, and it was a sidetrack well worth it.

Then we left Barkerville, happy as ever, and drove back to Prince George in the rental car, to go to bed early because the next day we were scheduled to hit the train very early in the morning!!
--by Steve Ruelle

Some links...

• Canada Vacations - Order FREE Brochure!
• Barkerville Historic Town
• More photos from Barkerville
• Map of the Gold Rush Trail
• More sites...