Meet Billy Barker

Because there wasn’t very much work for him at home, when Barker got the chance to travel to America (along with many other young men from Europe) he agreed. During the 1850s, he worked as a miner in the California gold rush, but didn’t seem to have much luck. By 1859, he had followed other gold-seekers north, to the area we now call British Columbia. At first, Billy Barker worked in Lillooet, about 400 km south of Barkerville. By 1861, he worked his way up to what is now Quesnel, where other miners had found lots of gold on the Fraser River. Around this time, gold was also being found in Richfield, just a 30-minute walk from present-day Barkerville. In 1862, Billy Barker moved to the area near Richfield to work on several mines that he owned. After he didn’t find any gold there, he decided to look below the canyon, in the area where Barkerville now lies. Many other miners thought Barker was being silly, and that he would find no gold.      Next...

Photograph from Barkerville Archives. A-1144.