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I am both an artist and an academic. To me, these two descriptors come from a common place of motivation. As a writer, an actor and an interpreter I am driven by a need to get closer and closer to answering questions that inspire, or sometimes even haunt me. The scholar in me is also moved to action by a burning curiosity and concern about specific themes. In every aspect of my work I am deeply interested in the idea of understanding, examining, and writing about British Columbia in terms of its historical foundation as a colony and its contemporary struggle to redefine itself in a post-colonial world.

In 2013 I attended my first international academic conference since graduating with a Masters of Arts in Applied Theatre two years earlier. It had been a while since I’d been in the academic milieu and I was struck by the fact that, in my brief absence, my fellow Applied Theatre researchers seemed to have moved away from speaking of formerly colonised nations as being in a state of “post-colonialism.” Instead they had begun employing the term “decolonisation.” Speaker after speaker addressed the idea of pulling apart the concept of colonialism, indicating that we are, worldwide, in a moment of urgency when it comes to accepting and dealing with the truths and intricacies of our collective past. The conference had me giddy with learning.  It was such a relief to find others who have the drive to create art that adds to the decolonisation conversation. I came home from that conference clear and focussed on where I needed to go now as an artist, researcher, and an interpreter of colonial history.

The Truth and Reconciliation movement in Canada is remarkable. For 25 years now my work has been centred on studying, decoding, and telling the story of this place we call British Columbia. To be perfectly frank I never thought that – in my lifetime, at least – we would see a day when we as Canadians would stand together so purposefully to address the pain, shame, and reality of the cruel side of our colonial history. Yet, here we are. This moment is so big, so important, so crucial. If we are to move into a place of understanding “who we are now” as a province that was once a colony, as a young land moving toward a more mature and honest age, we must face what we have lived through – and what we have done.

This past July we hosted our inaugural Aboriginal Celebration in Barkerville. First Nations singers and drummers and dancers spent a day entertaining, educating and mingling with our visitors, staff and interpreters. It was a very special day, and one that resonated deeply for me. I was especially moved by the generosity and sense of fun our aboriginal guests brought to the site – a site that, at first glance, is often seen as a monument to colonialism.

The aboriginal speakers welcomed us to the traditional land of the First Nations associated with the earth upon which Barkerville now sits. After years of working onsite, many of us here have developed a sense of ownership. To be “welcomed” to the ground we walk on daily – as some of us have for decades now – reminded all of us that the stories and significances we attach to a place are all a matter perspective. We understand a place based on our own, personal experience with it. To me, Barkerville feels like my own, but if I look deeper I discover that it is only my own because I claim it to be. In order to get closer to knowing the whole story of any place, we must be wide open to looking at it and the history we attach to it from many different angles – some of these angles are uncomfortable and hard and painful. But we need to do this. We need to get together. We need to talk.

As an historical interpreter, I have never been more excited about my work than I am now. By reconsidering British Columbia as I have been trying to do, my soul is being comforted by the discomfort I feel. Telling a bigger, tougher, even uglier version of the story of British Columbia feels more like honouring the whole tangled mess of what colonisation means to everyone who comes through it and stands together on the other side of it, wondering to ourselves and out loud: who are we now as a result of what we have been?

– Danette Boucher

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The above one-panel cartoon (originally published August 7, 2014) by Dirk Van Stralen, with accompanying editorial by Danette Boucher, is the twelfth of twenty weekly entries that were logged – and subsequently blogged – as part of a 2014 collaboration between Barkerville, British Columbia and the Prince George Citizen aimed at introducing some of the quirkier advantages to living, working, and playing in the Cariboo Goldfields. We hope you enjoy!

Today was a big day for the street interpreters in Barkerville. Today we made a little bit of history as we took the stage at the Theatre Royal for the first official and fully-realized street/theatre crossover.

For more than a decade now, Newman & Wright Theatre Company has graced Barkerville with musical variety shows and historical dramas that have provided world-class entertainment at the Theatre Royal throughout Barkerville’s five-month summer season. For six days out of every week, the theatre rings with songs and stories performed by this immensely talented troupe and its crew.

But what happens on the seventh day?

As amazing as our Theatre Royal cast is, no one can be expected to work seven days a week for five months straight without seriously hurting themselves. On Thursdays, Newman & Wright Theatre Company gets a well-deserved day off. In the world of live theatre a day of the week with no show is called a “dark day.” For many years there was a traditional dark day at the Theatre Royal, but for the past few years that dark day has been replaced by some alternative entertainment offering, in order to provide uninterrupted theatrical experiences for our visitors no matter what day of the week the choose to visit Barkerville.

We often fill the Thursday slot with solo shows – one person comedic, dramatic or historical pieces. In fact, for the past two seasons my own solo shows, The Bride of Barkerville and Lady Overlander, have covered Thursdays at the Theatre Royal. This season, however, I am back on the street full-time as an historical interpreter, so I wasn’t able to take up the Thursday challenge.

Not all by myself, at least.

This past spring Barkerville had an idea. We wondered if, in the grand tradition of the original Cariboo Amateur Dramatic Association, it would be possible to fill the Theatre Royal with entertainment brought to the residents and guests of Barkerville straight from the streets themselves.

In 1865 Miss Florence Wilson (the documented historical character I have played since 1993) joined Mrs. Catherine Parker, Mr. John Bowron, and a handful of Barkerville’s more prominent citizens to produce ‘amateur theatricals’ that they performed regularly in the Parlour Saloon. The Cariboo Sentinel newspaper, which ran its presses on Williams Creek from 1865 to 1875, is peppered with references to the Cariboo Amateur Dramatic Association, which clearly grew into a beloved and relied upon fixture of the social fabric of the original Cariboo gold rush. Eventually, the CADA helped to build the Theatre Royal itself, as a joint venture between the Dramatic Association and the Williams Creek Fire Brigade, in the aftermath of the Barkerville’s great fire of 1868. Live entertainment on the stage at the new theatre consisted of travelling professional troupes as well as the local community players.

Since 2013, Newman & Wright Theatre Company has presented its daily musical variety shows at the Theatre Royal under the ingenious pretext of a documented Victorian travelling company called LaFont and Ward’s Troupe. It made sense to us, then, that on Newman & Wright’s dark day the street interpreters of Barkerville should move into the theatre – not as ourselves but as our street characters, many of whom were CADA members in their day – to provide an hour of light-hearted fun and frivolity invoking the essence of the what the original Cariboo Amateurs might have produced for the people of Williams Creek who were hungry for some diversion from their long and arduous work days.

To say we had jitters today – our opening day – is a bit of an understatement. Barkerville’s street interpreters are seasoned professional actors, but now we presented ourselves with a unique new challenge: we would be engaged in a play within a play. Our interactive street presentations are themselves fairly complex undertakings, but now we would take our interpreted historical street characters and apply them to an unfamiliar format. We would be flinging our miners and merchants and Cariboo legends (even ‘Billy Barker’ himself is part of the show) onto the stage of the Theatre Royal to sing and joke and act in ways we seldom get a chance to experience during our regularly scheduled daily programming.

As we took the stage today at one o’clock I will freely admit to being uncharacteristically nervous… but the show must go on, as they say, and it did. Our new production, Billy Barker’s Hour of Vaudeville and Frivolity, played to a warm and welcoming house of rain-soaked visitors who had been pounded all morning by this week’s record-breaking BC storms. Several members of Newman & Wright’s six-days-per-week cast were in the audience – having ventured into Barkerville on their one and only day off in a remarkable gesture of support – and it was all so much fun. For the first time in a very long time the ‘townsfolk’ of Barkerville were strutting their stuff onstage at the Theatre Royal, and we are now so very proud to stand alongside Newman & Wright Theatre Company as part of the creative team bringing live performance to our beloved theatre seven days a week from now through September.

– Danette Boucher

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The above one-panel cartoon (originally published July 26, 2014) by Dirk Van Stralen, with accompanying editorial by Danette Boucher, is the eleventh of twenty weekly entries that were logged – and subsequently blogged – as part of a 2014 collaboration between Barkerville, British Columbia and the Prince George Citizen aimed at introducing some of the quirkier advantages to living, working, and playing in the Cariboo Goldfields. We hope you enjoy!

It is a sunny day in Barkerville, and a welcome mountain breeze keeps the air cool and fresh.  Last week there were a few roasting hot days so today our cast of interpreters, merchants and visitors alike are enjoying the ease of  this temperate moment. Everyone I meet on the street is experiencing a similar sensation – we are all gently meandering through a soft cloud of good cheer.

My first interpretive offering of the day, a “Characters of the Cariboo” performance in the Kelly Saloon, is done. The other street interpreters are off playing croquet with vacationers and engaging in street scenes. I realize I have about a half-hour of free time before my next show.

When we are not scheduled to do a specific scene or tour or site-specific performance in Barkerville, we interpreters are usually hosting. “Hosting” is the term we use to describe in-character, improvised interaction with visitors. Now, as I gaze up and down Barkerville’s main street, I realize that most of our guests are off at the Waterwheel Show or the Theatre Royal and at this very moment there aren’t many folks around that I can “host” to. So, instead, I choose to spend my time engaging in one of my favourite Barkerville pastimes: I go exploring.

I have been professionally associated with Barkerville for twenty-one years, so you might think that by now I have memorized every nook and cranny of the place. The thing is Barkerville is always changing. Descriptors like “heritage site” and “museum” often conjure misleading ideas: ideas of static displays and dusty sameness. This is simply not true.  Barkerville Historic Town, like many modern museums, is not frozen in time. Barkerville is a living, breathing entity. For all of its comforting consistency, the town is also rife with dynamic movement and exciting change.

Whenever I have a few minutes to myself onsite I try to explore the less obvious – but still vital – features of Barkerville. I love, for example, finding different vantage points from which to look at the rooftops.

Did you ever notice that the peaks and angles of Barkerville’s shingled and tin roofs make a gorgeous mosaic; a patchwork quilt of antique wood and metal that can look like accidental sculpture? Have you ever been out on the street just after a rainstorm as the rooftops steam like big boiling pots of broth when the water evaporates in the warmth of the sun? If you peek into the narrow spaces between buildings there are wildflowers that stretch and preen… columbine, buttercup, lupinus, forget-me-nots… like little ecosystems that live just out of view of those who aren’t looking for them.

I love to rediscover Barkerville’s tried and true buildings that are reassuringly, perfectly, exactly as they always are: the Bowron family parlour, the barber shop, the dentist’s office and the sacred stillness of our Chinatown’s Chee Kung Tong. Repeat visitors always remember their favourite displays and interpretive programs, and love that they remain just as they always have been in their memories and photos.

Today, I feel like exploring one of the excellent themed museum displays our curatorial team has created in little pockets throughout Barkerville, so I pop into one of the Tregillus outbuildings. From the outside this appears to be your average log cabin-style shed, but inside the visitor is treated to several albums full of Tregillus photos (for decades, the Tregillus family was one of Barkerville’s most prominent and beloved clans). I flip through the picture books and play “spot the location” with the more Cariboo-specific photos.

On a different day I might have chosen to go upstairs in the Nicol Hotel to visit another of my favourite places, the upper floor exhibit dedicated to the art and science of museology. I also love the Barkerville Hotel, wherein the curatorial team has turned each second-storey room into a tribute to a citizen who lived in the town during its most significant years. There are many of these themed displays throughout Barkerville, and new exhibits are in the works all the time.

Soon my half hour is up and it’s time to move out of the shadows and back into the sunlight, ready to be photographed and to answer questions and engage visitors and play to the crowds of people who are here for their first time or their fiftieth time. Barkerville may be old, but it never gets old to me.

– Danette Boucher

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The above one-panel cartoon (originally published July 12, 2014) by Dirk Van Stralen, with accompanying editorial by Danette Boucher, is the ninth of twenty weekly entries that were logged – and subsequently blogged – as part of a 2014 collaboration between Barkerville, British Columbia and the Prince George Citizen aimed at introducing some of the quirkier advantages to living, working, and playing in the Cariboo Goldfields. We hope you enjoy!

When I opened my email inbox this morning, I found a string of delightful messages from a museum curator in Alberta. She and I had met a few years ago when she came to see my solo Theatre Royal show The Bride of Barkerville, a dramatic interpretation of Miss Florence Wilson’s adventures in British Columbia between 1862 and 1875. The curator and I chatted for some time after the show, and she told me about the in-depth research she has recently been engaged in concerning the history of a another historical woman who had lived near Lethbridge. We have kept in touch a bit, the curator and me, and when I turned on my computer earlier today I was delighted to find she had taken the time to send me several links she had found to 1860s newspaper clippings featuring my Miss Wilson. It was so kind of her to have done this, and such a generous display of research sharing.

When I began my museum career in 1989, the internet was still a few years away from becoming the vast, international phenomenon of information distribution upon which we have become so dependent.  Back in those days, when we wanted to find obscure bits of information hidden away in old newspapers or letters or diaries, we actually (gasp!) went to archives and records services. We physically perused the collections. We looked in books, and made (landline!) phone calls. We also sent letters (by regular mail!) to museums and archives requesting information; information that could take weeks to receive.

For the past decade or so, museums around the world have undertaken the herculean task of digitizing historic documents. More and more often, the information we as researchers seek can be found in international collections that are now instantly accessible from the comfort of our own homes.  As a result, ridiculously patient researchers like me are in a zeitgeist of history-nerd heaven.  We are now making discoveries and connections at a pace unaccustomed to, in a field where it can literally take decades to uncover the tiniest morsel of fresh information about a historical person, place or event.

And yet, there is still something so very special about actually travelling to a museum, or digging through an archival collection to get your hands on a real, non-virtual, dusty old bit of stuff.

Several years ago I wrote a one-man stage play about the town of Wells, called The Fred Wells Show. It debuted at the Sunset Theatre in Wells (a theatre that was originally built by Fred Wells and the Cariboo Gold Quartz Mining Company in 1936) and my actor-interpreter husband, James Douglas, has been performing the show on a regular basis ever since.  In fact, as I write this very sentence right now, James is across the street at the Sunset Theatre performing The Fred Wells Show, after having already performed it this afternoon at the Theatre Royal in Barkerville.

While originally researching The Fred Wells Show I happened to be living in Victoria, with full access to the British Columbia Archives and Records building, beside the Royal BC Museum. I cannot adequately communicate the thrill it gave me to request the original letters that Mr. Wells himself wrote and received during the Cariboo gold town’s founding days. I sat there in the research room silently holding the same pieces of paper that Fred Marshall Wells had written upon. I was also able to read the entire scrapbook of one of Fred’s partners in the Cariboo Gold Quartz, Mr. Oscar Solibakke, and the original document was so big I had to stand up from my desk just to turn the pages. The scrapbook was an incredibly sweet and lovingly kept assortment of newspaper clippings about the mine in Wells, carefully pasted onto pages with a plethora of personal notes jotted down in ink in the margins. It was a delightful experience, and one I will never forget.

I think that one of the reasons people connect so deeply with a place like Barkerville is because at this particular moment in our history, when so much of our time is spent in cyberspace, our primal selves crave the humanity of walking streets that are washed with the patina of time. We need to breathe in dusty air and to listen to stories spoken by a person who is present, unplugged and real. The digital age has brought so much to our lives in such a short time. It has been a wondrous boon to researchers, but our human hearts know that real connections are made between people, not devices.

I am very grateful for an internet that allows me to communicate with a woman from Alberta, who was kind enough to remember me, and Miss Wilson, and to hold both of our stories in her mind so that we can find simple joy together in sharing a newspaper clipping from 150 years ago. I am equally grateful, however, for places like Wells and Barkerville; places that spark interest not through the world-wide-web but through cobwebs and old buildings and stories told out loud.

– Danette Boucher

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The above one-panel cartoon (originally published July 5, 2014) by Dirk Van Stralen, with accompanying editorial by Danette Boucher, is the eighth of twenty weekly entries that were logged – and subsequently blogged – as part of a 2014 collaboration between Barkerville, British Columbia and the Prince George Citizen aimed at introducing some of the quirkier advantages to living, working, and playing in the Cariboo Goldfields. We hope you enjoy!

Storytelling is, I believe, a great act of civilization. We share stories socially, we write them down, we speak them out loud. It’s part of how we make sense of ourselves. The humanity of storytelling includes understanding how and when one story fits into another story.

This week I was helping a new street interpreter wrestle with the challenge of Barkerville’s signature ‘town tour’ – perhaps the most complicated, abstract show I’ve ever been involved with during my career as a museum theatre specialist. We talked about the reasoning behind which stories are included and/or excluded from the formal presentation. There are so many Cariboo stories, and stories within stories, and we simply cannot cover them all in a single hour. Instead, we find ourselves having to cut stories we love because of time restraints, or relevance, or because a particular topic is being dealt with adequately by a different interpretive program. There are also situations, I said, when a story “just has to wait for its moment.” She seemed a little confused by this last utterance, and for good reason. It can be tricky to grasp the idea that, sometimes, a story needs to wait for just the right time and place to be told.

Here is an example of what I mean: in 2013 the film Twelve Years a Slave was released. A cinematic interpretation of a true story from the 1850s depicting the highly charged history of American slavery, the movie went on to win an Academy Award for Best Picture.

British Columbia has its own, fascinating story that directly relates to the film’s theme. In 1858, several hundred African-American families left California, where they had lived under legislated discrimination, for the Colony of Vancouver Island. British Columbia’s first colonial Governor, James Douglas (who was himself the son of a free-born Creole woman) assured these new immigrants that they would be subject to the same laws as every other free citizen of BC, as well as the same basic rights and liberties.

Some of those ‘citizens of colour’ made their way to the Cariboo goldfields. Two of them – Wellington Delaney Moses (a barber) and Dr. William Allen Jones (a dentist) – are prominently featured in Barkerville’s main street museum displays.

For many years, it felt awkward to find words to interpret this chapter of our colonial history. We have many wonderful American visitors to Barkerville every year, and we certainly do not want our story of acceptance to seem smug or self-righteous or purposely highlighted. We had to ask ourselves: “extreme historical significance notwithstanding, how does this story enhance the overriding narrative arc of the town tour?”

If we interpret this specific story of emancipation, how much additional information about Victorian racial tensions and the dawning age of multiculturalism introduced by Western gold rushes do we need to fill in to create context for its inclusion? Does the story fit this moment in interpretive history?

With the world-wide release and success of Twelve Years a Slave, an international discussion about slavery was reinvigorated. Consequently, in 2014, interpreting BC’s small but significant chapter in this weighty North American story feels relevant, topical, and part of an important global conversation.

The opposite, however, can also be true. We might purposely alter or even exclude a story or theme due to current international events. The mythology of North America’s gold rush era, for example, is steeped in images of guns and frontier justice. Visitors to Barkerville are often interested to know how weapons were carried, and controlled (or not) by lawmakers. The topic of weaponry has often been discussed in entertaining, sometimes even light-hearted, ways that self-consciously ‘wink’ at the Hollywood-style stereotypes many of us have come to recognize as emblematic of the ‘Wild West.’

But as we began the 2014 Barkerville season, the media was fraught with stories of random shootings and other acts of violence – some of them as startlingly close to us as Vancouver. It may seem over-sensitive on our part, but when these world events are recent and raw it really does affect the way we interpret their historical antecedents. We try to be sensitive to the emotional, political and historical climate in which we tell our stories. We have to be. We may not even realize we are doing it, but our perception of historical anecdotes is unconsciously steered by modern affairs.

I am fascinated by the idea of a post-colonial Canada wherein we are beginning to see crucial, albeit difficult examinations of our nation’s history relating to Truth and Reconciliation with our indigenous peoples (perhaps it is worth mentioning here that despite my rather Eurocentric appearance my great-great-grandmother was Khah-my of the Sḵwxwú7mesh [Squamish] Nation). I hope the idea of reconciliation leads to more interpretation of aboriginal themes in Barkerville.

Sometimes we won’t tell a story if we do not feel we are, by our own comprehension at least, ready to talk about it. In this present-day moment of national reflection we are inching towards a time of greater understanding of a complex story that we need to tell in our interpretive venues… but only when the time is right. Although we certainly haven’t avoided discussion of Barkerville’s aboriginal history, nor the history of American slavery, we have been careful with any stories that require reasonable sensitivity toward, and careful consideration of, a culture that might not be perceived of as our own.

– Danette Boucher

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The above one-panel cartoon (originally published June 28, 2014) by Dirk Van Stralen, with accompanying editorial by Danette Boucher, is the seventh of twenty weekly entries that were logged – and subsequently blogged – as part of a 2014 collaboration between Barkerville, British Columbia and the Prince George Citizen aimed at introducing some of the quirkier advantages to living, working, and playing in the Cariboo Goldfields. We hope you enjoy!

The 2014 season marks a momentous “first” in Barkerville’s second life as western North America’s largest heritage attraction. Visitors to Barkerville this year can take advantage of a unique opportunity to meet the town’s namesake resident: Mr. Billy Barker.

Believe it or not, for all the years Barkerville has been a living history museum there has never been a street interpreter who spent a full-season researching and presenting the personal history of Billy Barker, in role.

Until now.

It may seem odd that Barkerville has existed for this long as a museum without someone perpetually playing Billy Barker on the street, but there are a couple of reasons why it hasn’t really happened before. First of all, for the better part of Barkerville’s “living history” we have interpreted the town’s narrative from the vantage point of a specific year: 1870. It made sense at the time to interpret a part of the story that represented the twilight years of BC’s original gold rush, on the cusp of Confederation. By 1870 Billy Barker was mining elsewhere in BC, so it also made sense for actors in role to speak of him fondly, but in the past tense.

We no longer isolate any single year as our interpretive launch pad. Now we adhere to a more abstract technique that provides our interpreters the freedom to acknowledge and explore Barkerville’s whole story from their individual character’s personal frame of reference. As such, Billy Barker himself can roam the streets of town with liberty and the ability to address the relatively short time he actually spent there, as well as the entire history of the gold rush and all the years beyond.

The second reason is Andrew Hamilton.

We’ve always instinctively known, I think, that if Barkerville was ever going to have a “Billy Barker” on the street we would need to find an actor-interpreter who was not only skilled enough to handle such an iconic role, but one who also happened to bear a strong resemblance to the man himself. After all, Barker’s face is the face of Barkerville. I mean literally… he’s on the logo.

In 1999, an a­­ccomplished performer and graduate of the University of Alberta’s nationally-renowned Department of Drama named Andrew Hamilton auditioned for Barkerville’s Historic Street interpretation program and was cast as indomitable industrialist Thomas Patullo (who was, incidentally, the uncle of British Columbia’s 22^nd Premier, Duff Patullo). Andrew played Mr. Patullo for five seasons, then left town for a few years before returning in 2008 to play colonial magistrate Chartres Brew for Barkerville’s Early Justice program. He has made Wells-Barkerville his permanent home ever since.

This season Andrew Hamilton became Artistic Director of Barkerville’s Historic Street program, and took up the eponymous challenge: he would play Billy Barker. Thanks to an ever-expanding body of written material by gold rush researchers like Ken Mather, W.G. Quackenbush, and Richard Wright (as well as a noteworthy encounter with Barker’s great-great-granddaughter during our sesquicentennial celebrations in 2012) Andrew has decided it’s time Billy Barker came home. And, based on the one verified historical photograph we have, Mr. Hamilton happens to look a heckuva lot like Mr. Barker (if you want to see for yourself come to Barkerville, or just look at the bottom of this page).

Our new Billy has been on the street for about a month now and I have to say that as a fellow cast member it is a joy to watch a seasoned interpreter bring our forefather to life. Mr. Barker conducts town tours, appears in street scenes, reminisces about his life, and is available five days per week for “hosting,” which is our term for improvised interaction in role. Visitors have been delighted by their opportunity to meet with, talk with, and learn from Billy Barker. As a long-time Barkerville resident myself, I am thrilled to see Barker have a symbolic second chance to walk the streets of the town he helped build; a town that continues to be so significant to the story of us.  Thank you, Andrew Hamilton. Because of you, Billy Barker lives again.

– Danette Boucher

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The above one-panel cartoon (originally published June 14, 2014) by Dirk Van Stralen, with accompanying editorial by Danette Boucher, is the fifth of twenty weekly entries that were logged – and subsequently blogged – as part of a 2014 collaboration between Barkerville, British Columbiaand the Prince George Citizen aimed at introducing some of the quirkier advantages to living, working, and playing in the Cariboo Goldfields. We hope you enjoy!

As I settle back into my role as a Barkerville street interpreter after four seasons appearing onstage at the Theatre Royal, I’ve been thinking a lot about the payoff of being a performer. The why in why we do this job.

In theatre, the payoff usually follows a traditional pattern: at the end of a show the audience applauds. There is often a bit of time after each performance for actors to chat with audience members, to get immediate feedback and to answer questions, but in a traditional theatre experience both viewer and performer have a basic, unspoken agreement: I put on a show for you, you watch the show and at the end of the show your appropriate response is to clap (perhaps even stand) to demonstrate that you have appreciated the performance.

With historical interpretation, the payoff presents itself in a myriad of forms – some traditional, some unusual, many unexpected. After a town tour visitors will typically applaud, but they also share stories of their travels, ask insightful questions inspired by information they have just absorbed, offer comparisons between Barkerville and the history of their own homelands, and make connections between our gold rush story and events in their own lives.

There is an openness that develops between people who have shared a common experience as unique as a tour presented in role, or a complex mining demonstration presented as a simple investment rally in character by experienced historical interpreters. Whether it’s a court session with the colonial judge, or a lesson with the Victorian schoolteacher, when we take on the roles of performer and observer with no fourth wall to separate actor and audience, the real payback is what visitors tend to give back to us, the interpreters, in ways they may not even realize.

Children, for example, can have such an extraordinary level of buy-in when it comes to role-playing that the payoff can be as simple as a child believing in us as our historical characters. If we say we are from another time, their wonderfully abstract minds, filled with the wide open acceptance of childhood, just believe it.  In that belief, there is a specific and very gratifying kind of magic.

Payoff also comes in the form of returning visitors, who bring photos and share memories from past experiences in Barkerville, where it becomes clear that the historic town has found its way into their own family lore.

This week a school group from Northern BC reduced me and the woman playing Mrs. Bowron to tears when they quietly sang O Canada for us in their traditional Carrier language. They did this as a way of acknowledging the experiences that had passed between us all. Later, a woman from that same school group engaged in a long conversation with me – as my character Miss Wilson – about where we are now, globally, in the interpretation of indigenous stories in colonial-era museums.

Since our interpretive model in Barkerville does not prohibit an actor from acknowledging modern ideas (provided that acknowledgement remains in role and in character) the two of us were able to really talk about this contemporary moment of deep thought about truth and reconciliation, and how it might someday manifest itself in the world of museums and heritage sites, with me switching tenses appropriately as we discussed past and “future” concepts.

I can’t say that I don’t occasionally miss the immediate gratification that comes from the customary payoff at the end of a traditional theatre show, but I especially love the unexpected series of payoffs that present themselves after each and every day on the street in Barkerville.

– Danette Boucher

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The above one-panel cartoon (originally published May 31st, 2014) by Dirk Van Stralen, with accompanying editorial by Danette Boucher, is the third of twenty weekly entries that were logged – and subsequently blogged – as part of a 2014 collaboration between Barkerville, British Columbia and the Prince George Citizen aimed at introducing some of the quirkier advantages to living, working, and playing in the Cariboo Goldfields. We hope you enjoy!

Another historical interpreter once told me that “love is in the details.”  The expression struck a chord with me, and from then on, when it comes to interpreting history, I have believed that paying strong attention to detail is what turns good work into great work. In my own process, for example, I always try to pay careful attention to the details of language.

In Barkerville, I play a documented character that lived and worked on Williams Creek from 1864 until 1875. Our mandate for street interpretation is to address the town’s entire history – from 1862 until 2014 – so I must therefore be able to speak about events that happened outside of the timeframe defined by my role. Like many of us at the site, I converse with careful attention paid to the use of the past, present and future tense.

In Barkerville you may hear me say something like “in 1958, the town will transition from a fully functional municipality into a heritage site, or living-history museum.”  By using the future tense  (‘will transition’) rather than saying ‘did transition’ or ‘transitioned,’ I remain authentically in role while simultaneously acknowledging the inauthenticity of the situation: my historical character, in her actual life, obviously could not have known what would happen to Barkerville almost 100 years after she died.

When Barkerville’s street interpreters speak about modern concepts within the confines of this ‘omniscient’ character concept, we are not re-enacting. We are acting. We are being authentically inauthentic.

It’s the details that make it work.

Whether I am on the street, inside a building, or frequenting a business in Barkerville, I always maintain historically authentic dialect, turns of phrase, and mannerisms. We take pride in the finer details of our antique appearance – proper hairstyles, accessories and attire are essential to presenting first-person educational programs at our National Historic Site. Female interpreters wear gloves and hats when outdoors, for example, and male interpreters remove their hats when entering a building.

For Barkerville interpreters, careful observance of historical details reveals our respect for the site, our audience, and the history we share – but we’re not the only ones who obsess over those small but crucial elements that make a visit to the site unique. Many of our merchants take great pains to obscure necessary modern conveniences like power outlets, credit card machines, and commercial cooking equipment. They also carefully select merchandise and wares that fit our bygone story. Food and beverage providers pay attention to menu items that both meet visitor expectations and reflect our exceptional historical setting. Our Curatorial and Visitor Experiences teams are constantly attending to a myriad of details that provide guests the opportunity to feel connected to another time. Be it garbage cans encased in wooden barrels or modern fire hydrants concealed by realistic facades, we try to eliminate anything anachronistic that may jar your eye. These details might not occur to you when you visit Barkerville, but they quietly impact your experience.

Our presentation isn’t perfect. Of course it’s not. There are many areas where attention to detail can be enriched, and we are always trying to improve. This is true of any heritage site and part of the excitement and challenge of working at a living history museum as large and as complex as Barkerville comes from understanding that our job is, and always will be, a passionate work in progress.

– Danette Boucher

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The above one-panel cartoon (originally published June 10, 2014) by Dirk Van Stralen, with accompanying editorial by Danette Boucher, is the fourth of twenty weekly entries that were logged – and subsequently blogged – as part of a 2014 collaboration between Barkerville, British Columbia and the Prince George Citizen aimed at introducing some of the quirkier advantages to living, working, and playing in the Cariboo Goldfields. We hope you enjoy!

As I was leaving Barkerville this afternoon after my latest shift on “the street,” I overheard some grade ten students who had just attended the Early Justice School Program with our ‘Judge Begbie’ and our ‘Judge Brew’. “They were really good,” said one young lady to her classmate.

“That one judge reminded me of Benedict Cumberbatch,” said the other.

“They get really good actors here,” said their teacher. “Not just anyone can do it.”

My heart swelled to hear those students and their teacher, not only because they recognized the work of Barkerville’s historical interpreters, but also because they seemed to recognize that First-Person Historical Interpretation is a challenging – and specialized – theatre technique.

I have made my living as a performer and writer for nearly three decades, and I can say without hesitation that for me no acting challenge can match that of historical interpretation. Taking on the role of someone from our documented history is a mighty tall order when you consider the ethics of truthfully and authentically conveying another time period without allowing it to descend into caricature.  Add to that the responsibility of portraying a person who actually lived, a person who deserves to have his or her memory respected and honoured.

Now throw in the small fact of having to additionally know and comprehend more than a century’s worth of historical facts and figures, events and concepts. Toss in the need for basic performance skills such as vocal training (allowing us to speak and more often project to large, outdoor crowds for hours a day and months on end without straining or damaging our voices) and improvisation in role while interacting with the public, all the while using correct manners, etiquette, dialect and grammar appropriate for the era being interpreted.  We also need to be our own script writers a lot of the time, and often within the parameters of some very abstract space-time conventions.

Many theatre professionals who work as Barkerville interpreters have had long careers on the stage, or in film and television. Several have performed all over the world, and almost all of us have extensive acting training. Others may have less formal schooling or less diversified resumes, but they have been historical interpreters for a very long time, and have spent years honing and mastering this very specific craft.  Every season we welcome to the site a few novice interpreters, of course, who have the great opportunity to learn and grow alongside veterans.

No matter what our backgrounds are, however, our job as Barkerville interpreters is to make you – the visitor – forget all the hard work that goes into the preparation of our performances so that we can get on with doing what we are here to do: interpret our collective history in a manner that is engaging, memorable, entertaining and educational.

So, thank you. Thank you to all of you who – like those two students and one teacher I overheard this evening – take a minute to consider and appreciate what it is we do in Barkerville. It makes the hours spent soldiering on in pounding rainstorms or pretending to be comfortable in six layers of clothing on hot days or trying to project our voices over the roaring of the spring thaw filled creek, all the more worthwhile. We love our jobs, and we appreciate it so much when you value what we do.

– Danette Boucher

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The above one-panel cartoon (originally published May 24th, 2014) by Dirk Van Stralen, with accompanying editorial by Danette Boucher, is the second of twenty weekly entries that were logged – and subsequently blogged – as part of a 2014 collaboration between Barkerville, British Columbia and the Prince George Citizen aimed at introducing some of the quirkier advantages to living, working, and playing in the Cariboo Goldfields. We hope you enjoy!