road trip 2022 - day 4 Barkerville

I spent the whole day in Barkerville. I'm so glad I booked a couple of nights accommodation inside the historic park, as it gave me the whole day today to look around. St. George Hotel is the genuine article, one of the hotels from the late 1800's.  Here is the outside, and the main sitting area on the inside.

I started the day with a 1 and 1/2 hour walking tour, which gave a fantastic overview of the history of Barkerville and the gold rush, and lots of stories about certain people of the time. The interesting thing about Barkerville is that it was never a ghost town - there's always been people here - which may have helped it being preserved the way it is. While some buildings have been replaced, most are original buildings in their original locations. 

After the tour I spent the rest of the day walking through the town checking out all the buildings.  It had rained very hard all night, so in the morning the street was still pretty muddy.  Fortunately it didn't rain during the day, and by mid-afternoon it cleared up.

I stopped for lunch at Wake Up Jake, in one of the old buildings.

Some buildings I checked out were the old school house, and the functioning Anglican Church.

 I also visited a print shop that is still active.

I asked the guy at the print shop how much of the equipment was old, and he said everything except the typeface which gets worn out. He was busy printing up signs for Canada Day events. He said that in a 'normal' (ie. pre-COVID) year, there are so many shows going on that it impossible to see everything in one day. I definitely want to come back and spend more time in that case. 

I've always heard about Barkerville and so I knew it was a famous place. But even so, it exceeded my expectations. Definitely a special place.