Friends of Barkerville Newsletter (issue 1/volume 23/spring 2023)

Friends of Barkerville Issue 1 / volume 23 / spring 2023

Cariboo Goldfields Historical Society newsletter

From the Editor Brendan Bailey

Dear Friends of Barkerville – Cariboo Goldfields Historical Society members, former members, and prospective members alike, we certainly hope that you are enjoying our quarterly society newsletter-cum-historical periodical and all of the benefit perks that come along with being a society member.

table of contents p1.

From the editor Passings Updates

p2.

About us

p3.

Woman of the year Cinematic Barkerville

p4.

John Wintrip’s Lanthorn

p5.

Brave Souls, Lofty Goals

p6.

100 days of Barkerville

p7.

Barkerville’s Theatre Royal, part two

Barkerville in Winter. Photo: B. Bailey

Passings We would like to extend a debt of gratitude to, and to take a moment of acknowledgement in memory of, Lauchie MacLean, who left us in February. Lauchie has been a member of the Barkerville family for many years and the site won’t be the same without him. His work can be seen in every building, boardwalk, and railing in Barkerville. Our condolences to his family and loved ones, and it is with heavy hearts that we recognize his passing.

We also recognize the loss of Ross Douglas in March. Ross was a songwriter, troubadour, and stage performer for the Eureka Theatre Company from the mid-90s through the early-00’s. Many of the songs he composed for the Theatre Royal stage and Barkerville’s late afternoon street music set found their way onto his recorded albums, and he was adept at winding together humour, reverence, and reflection in his work through composition complimented by his playful, resonate, and expressive baritone voice. Ross also expressed a deep love for his experiences in Wells-Barkerville with songs such as Driving to Quesnel,

Worlds Apart, The Sunset, Wingdam South of Wells, Pooley Street Stomp, Solibakke, and his local anthem: Wells. The Barkerville Song was sung daily in a cappella by street interpreters through the nineties and has presently been sung during their Town Photograph scene since 2014. The Value of Gold is a tribute to every gold-seeker while Here’s to the Fools is a tribute to every Barkerville performer. You can find Ross’ albums in local stores such as the Sunset Theatre lobby and Frog on the Bog Gifts or digitally online; Caribou Eclectic being considered a local classic. A personal favourite, if I may, is Ross’ sweet love ballad, A Touch of You, from his delightful 2009 offering The Art of You and I. You can hear Ross’ powerful re-imagining of Value of Gold in the short film The Long Road to Cariboo.

Updates As you may have recalled from our previous newsletters, our society is now (once again) a charitable organization. Work on the Stanley cemetery will commence later this year, and work on signage for the 21km Stanley to Barkerville circle connector trail continues. More suited to

off-road mountain biking, the restored Cariboo Waggon Road trail will provide historical anecdotes, gps pins, elevation data, maps, historical photographs, and kilometre markers for winter snowshoers and x-country skiers, or, summer cyclists and ambitious hikers alike.

Our Bloody Good Bash fundraiser and party was such a success last year that we are tentatively looking at Saturday, September 16th this year.

Get ready for a joyous evening of food, drink, a live auction, camping, song and dance!

Following the success of last season’s emergence-from-the-pandemic model, Barkerville Historic Town & Park is gearing up for another busy season being promoted as the 100 Days of Barkerville: Saturday, June 3rd through Sunday, September 10th.

In February, Barkerville hosted a comprehensive series of Indigenous Tourism Workshops and Courses, and also held a free four-hour event on Family Day.

Who Are We? We are the Friends of Barkerville - Cariboo Goldfields Historical Society, a Charitable Non-Profit organization comprised of dedicated volunteers. Our focus is to enhance Preservation, Protection, and Promotion as it applies to Barkerville Historic Town & Park and the Historic Cariboo Goldfields area.

Executive Directors Hildur Sinclair (president), Grant Johannensen (vice president), Tony McDonald (treasurer), Kwynn Bodman (secretary), Other Directors: Robin Grady, Emily Bailey, Brendan Bailey, Hayley Archer, and Rocky Nenka.

Director’s Meetings Monthly meetings are held at Troll Resort.

We try to hold two of the meetings about June and September in the the town of Barkerville in the new school building. Members and/or the public can attend these meetings

2

Later in the month, the final leg of the 31st Gold Rush Trail annual Dog Sled Mail Run and Barkerville Dash took place on February 26th. This special event ensures that actual post is authentically delivered by dogsled to the historic Barkerville post office (which hasn’t been staffed for a few years but will be operating again this summer) where it is received by a mail courier for delivery. The Goldfields Bakery provided delicacies for the event and had hot beverages available for the small, supportive crowd gathered to encourage multiple generations of sled dogs and mushers over the finish line.

Meanwhile, Barkerville has been much more active on social media as of late, so be sure to subscribe to their facebook page for regular updates. If you follow Barkerville on Youtube, you’ll note that a vast repository of collected site footage (including scenes shot for the 2019 Rich In History educational website) have now been uploaded for your viewing leisure.

with advance notice, but they cannot vote unless it is during the AGM. Members are welcome to express their input, suggestions, and ideas.

Newsletter Credit and Copyright to the contributors unless otherwise noted. Minor editorial supervision by Brendan Bailey and layout by Dirk Van Stralen. All persons with submission of articles and photos are given full credit. Please feel free to send in your items of interest for consideration in our upcoming newsletters.

Positions Society director positions are a one-year term from the November AGM through the following November AGM, during which time, as per constitution, positions are elected or re-elected.

Committee Positions include: membership, special projects, newsletter, and website.

Regarding society business, we Friends have been looking over our administrative records and realized that during the last 35 years our membership dues have only increased by $5.

In recognition of the important work that the Friends of Barkerville-Cariboo Goldfields Historical Society completes, we are increasing our membership dues ever so slightly in 2023 to $25 for a single membership and $40 for a couple/family membership. No more than a second pint of Barkerville Brewing’s finest per

Membership Perks • May 1st to April 30th annual issue (only $25 individual, $40 couple) • Quarterly Souvenir Newsletter Subscription $15 • 20% discount on Barkerville Historic Town & Park Admission • 10% discount on a day-pass at Troll Ski Resort on Highway 26 • 10% off your bill at Barkerville Brewing Co. in Quesnel • A free ice cream at Frog on the Bog Gifts in Wells

Contact Mailing Address: PO Box 4152, Quesnel, BC, V2J 3J2 Primary E-Mail: friendsofbarkerville@ barkerville.ca Website: www.friendsofbarkerville.ca Facebook: Friends of Barkerville - Cariboo Goldfields Historical Society Memberships: in person or via paypal through website (see QR code) Newsletter: brendan.bailey@barkerville.ca, or fobgoldfieldsmembership@gmail.com

Cinematic Barkerville

31st Gold Rush Sled Dog Mail Run, February 26th, 2023; photos: B.Bailey

member, but it will help us to better serve our mandate and this region.

Due to the increasing popularity of our souvenir historical periodical/newsletter and the expense of post, members requesting mailed copies will now subscribe to the quarterly publication for an additional $15 (to cover the postage fees at nearly $4 per issue). Please note that printed copies will remain available at select local businesses by donation, and, of course, are available to read at your leisure for free digitally on our website.

This year’s memberships go into effect on May 1st but can be purchased in advance through our website, via the QR code in this newsletter, in person from our society directors, or through the Visitors Reception Centre in Barkerville Historic Town & Park.

Woman of the Year We would like to extend our congratulations to Barkerville’s present Chief Executive Officer, Kate Cox, for being the recipient of the Business Woman of the Year Award at the BC Tourism and Hospitality Conference Awards Gala held on March 2nd, 2023.

Cox noted, “This award belongs to my teammates as much as me,” and reflected upon Barkerville’s second nomination in the Remark-

able Experiences category, “We wouldn’t have received the Remarkable Experiences nomination had it not been for the spectacular team of people who I work with, they are incredible … I am proud of the work we do every day to keep our National and Provincial Heritage Site standing. I am grateful every day to work with people who have proven themselves to be flexible and adaptive to ever-changing circumstances.” (as transcribed by Pat Matthews, My Cariboo Now)

Regarding fans, those who have enjoyed the immeasurable and often overlooked talents of Canadian cinema will already know that Canadian icon and actor, Gordon Pinsent, passed away in his nineties in late February. Pinsent voiced King Babar in the popular animated series, got up to eastcoast hijinx with Brendan Gleeson in the Canadiana comedy, The Grand Seduction, blazed a trail for independent Canadian filmmakers with his 1972 film, The Rowdyman, and gave one of the most powerful performances in contemporary cinema, (alongside Julie Christie’s Oscar-nominated work), in Sarah Polley’s adaption of an Alice Munro short story, Away from Her. We recognize Pinsent here because in 1979 an adaption of Jack London’s stories was filmed at various locations throughout British Columbia, including, of course, where else?

Barkerville!

Theatrically released in 1980 as Klondike Fever, a late 1970s Barkerville was transformed to represent an 1890s Yukon in a number of winter scenes. Pinsent portrayed the historically charismatic rogue, Swiftwater Bill, and relied on Pierre Berton’s research for character development (for which Pinsent received a Best Supporting Actor Genie). Dated, but charming, you can still find copies of Klondike Fever if you look hard enough, or, you can stream it on Youtube.

Furthermore, the recipient of the Remarkable Experiences award went to Prince George’s Northern FanCon (an event that originated in a Barkerville-hosted, steampunk-themed Geekenders convention in September of 2012; it would branch into Northern FanCon and a now retired Lost in Time closing-weekend event in Barkerville).

Also of note, the partially Barkerville-filmed haunted documentary series, Beyond the Haunting’s Haunted Gold Rush, received the Tourism BC Innovation Award.

A heartfelt congratulations from all of us Friends to Kate Cox and the Barkerville team, to Northern FanCon, and to Beyond the Haunting. Barkerville was recognized at the 2022 BC Tourism and Hospitality Conference in a number of facets!

3

Books If you’re looking for more reading material, Fred W. Ludditt’s invaluable account of Barkerville, including first-hand interviews with some of the ‘old-timers’ and with an overview of his own experiences living there in the thirties through fifties, Barkerville Days (first published in hardcover in 1969 with a revised paperback edition in 1980) is seeing an additional revised re-issue through Caitlin Press featuring an introduction by his daughter, Karin Ludditt.

Though some of the previously accepted facts of the era have been amended by further curatorial research and increasing archival collections over the last 90 years, Mr. Ludditt was an invaluable historian and lobbyist, was instrumental in the conservation of Barkerville, and Barkerville Days (as well as its companion volumes: his earlier Gold in the Cariboo, 1958, and later Campfire Sketches of the Cariboo, 1974) is one of the most important reads for any history enthusiast keen on gleaning a fuller picture of Barkerville’s vast and influential history.

Similarly, provincial history buffs will also be pleased to know that Heritage House Publishing has a number of new volumes available which can be found at www.heritagehouse. ca. Heritage House is the publisher of Richard Wright’s quintessential Barkerville and the Cariboo Goldfields (2013), and Linda Peterat’s acclaimed From Denmark to the Cariboo (2022).

Newman and Wright.

More on Richard Wright, our Founding Chair, an early film project involving him and his family, 1978’s Family Down the Fraser, has recently been remastered and made available to watch for free by the National Film Board of Canada.

The film documents the Wright family’s journey rafting the Fraser from Tete Juan Cache to the Pacific Coast.

Back to Barkerville: we Friends have donated $25,000 to assist with interpretation employment this season. Namely, in seeking an Historical Interpreter with a passion for Chinese history and music. Meanwhile, other initiatives to support the site’s critical interpretative component are under consideration.

We hope you enjoy this newsletter, dear members. If you are not a member, we encourage you to join the Friends of Barkerville. You can note the perks of doing so in this newsletter or by visiting our website. Most importantly, we hope you can make it out to visit Barkerville Historic Town and Park for their 100 Days of Barkerville this season!

John Wintrip’s Lanthorn

Perhaps of interest, a former Barkerville curatorial assistant and interpreter, Josie Teed, has recently published her debut novel: British Columbiana: A Millennial in a Gold Rush Town.

A highly fictionalized and yet very personal account of her experiences in the site, her coming-of-age quasi-memoir is receiving compelling reviews (“vulnerable, sweet, and funny all at once” and “a hilarious and refreshing debut”) and we look forward to reading it ourselves.

Jack ‘O’ Clubs General 250-994-3242

4

Long Road to Cariboo, the short film by Newman & Wright Productions and New Pathways to Gold (featuring the work of Ross Douglas on the soundtrack), and their 2019 documentary: Nam Sing: A Man for Gold Mountain, were both recent semi-finalists at the Hong Kong Indie Film Festival. Long Road to Cariboo was awarded Best Editing. Congratulations to

It is just a very old-fashioned lanthorn of tin, with glass window lights, through which flickers a gleam of light when its one candle power is lighted. But what a wonderful story it could relate if endowed with the gift to record the events its light beamed upon for upwards of three centuries.

Last summer while strolling up Barkerville Main St., I met an old-timer who carried in his hand this old-fashioned relic of “Auld Lang Syne.” Many years ago, we were boys together, but had not met for quite a long time.

After a few commonplace remarks Jack Wintrip ejaculated, “Bob do you remember this old lanthorn?” On the spur of the moment, I replied in the negative. “Well Jack,” he went on, “this relic has been in constant use by father and son for over three centuries. It is one of my greatest treasures, and I expect to keep this old friend with me until my own light flickers out.”

There were three Wintrip brothers, Lewis, Edward and Robert, and the father, or John.

They were blacksmiths by trade, and miners operating hydraulic mines on Stout and Walkers’ Gulches. On their journeys to and from Richfield and Barkerville by night, this lanthorn shone the way. Especially through the dark narrow “Canyon” this Jack O’ Lanthorn was a trusty guide.

Brave Souls, Lofty Goals Dreamers, adventurers, risk takers, travelled by way of tall ships, paddle wheelers, & steam liners.

Leaving behind families & homes to become merchants, land owners, entrepreneurs, diehard miners.

On foot, by boat, stagecoach, horse, mule, or ox.

Some learned a trade through the school of hard knocks.

Exploring & seeking through it all – mud, rain, mosquitoes, flies, sleet, & snow.

Under cover of spruce, pine, aspen, birch, cottonwood, & firs they would go.

Dust on the trails behind strong sturdy livestock.

Dust, shiny flakes in creeks from gold bearing rock.

First Nations literally blazed trails to water sources through the woods.

Leading to fish, game, berries, villages, rock, essential needs and goods.

Riches, losses or mediocrity set the stage for future plans down the road.

Invest, divest, settle down or move along, search for the elusive mother lode.

To stop the bleeding, returning home was the answer for a few.

John C. Wintrip, Barkerville Cemetery, Lana Fox photo, 2010

It had twinkled in the dance halls when Barkerville, Camerontown and Marysville were gold mad. It had glimmered on the gaming tables where huge sums were staked on the turn of a card. It had mingled with other lights when care-free miners reveled at the Wake-up Jake, and other famous resorts. When Billy Barker, John A. Cameron, and other fortunate miners were making history for B.C., and spending gold in a running stream, this relic of tin and glass was an acting part and parcel of it.

It had lit up the dump box in the shaft house, where the night shift labored, and cast its rays on many a pan of dull yellow gold. From the beginning of the gold rush, through its hectic, glorious boom days, then through its decline,

Others changed direction and their careers, trying something new.

Larger cities with warmer climates might attract you.

Others preferred wilderness for the lifestyle & view.

There are those that left their mark in the region they called Cariboo.

It may have been a grave stone or a home where a family grew.

Some were comfortable and rich, growing to a ripe old age.

Unfortunately some died young, trying hard to earn a wage.

Looking around us now, there are pioneers’ ancestors.

All that remains, of incredible lives of homesteaders.

– Grant Johannesen Feb. 2023

5

this old lanthorn of the Wintrips still glimmers on its even way.

As I remarked in a former paragraph, if this lanthorn of Jack Wintrips, which by wonderful carefulness has survived throughout the entire gold rush, could record the events its light has shone on, a truly wonderful take it would unfold.

– Written by R. N. Campbell

Additional notes: Article extracted from Cariboo Observer, Vol.21 No.35, Sat. April 6, 1929, pg.2.

The word “Lanthorn” was used during 16-19th century, an archaic word for “Lantern”.

Photo of John Clavering Wintrip is from Ancestry.ca which was submitted by Karen Kaycee, from Wintrip Family Tree in 2014.

Nice to put a face to whom this article was written about.

Who was R.N. Campbell? Robert or Bob as he was known, submitted interesting articles I might add, over a period of time, to the newspaper, of some early goldrush miners he became acquainted with.

A short mention of him is in the Cariboo Observer, Vol.19, No.36, Sat. April 16,1927,

quoting from the editor, “R.N. Campbell one of the known mining men and prospectors in Cariboo, was in town from Horsefly for a few hours last Tuesday. Mr. Campbell met a number of his old friends during his short stay, and is promising himself, when he expects to make a business trip into the Barkerville district.”

When perusing through the early Cariboo Observer newspapers you may also stumble on a few poems he also wrote.

– Submitted by Lana Fox

100 Days of Barkerville On January 25, 2023, Barkerville Historic Town & Park announced the dates for its upcoming season: Saturday, June 3rd until Sunday, September 10th.

This means that there will be 100 days to visit Barkerville to check-out the live interpretation programs and enjoy the shops and restaurants.

Visitors will be able to take in old favourites such as the Guided Town Tour and Cornish Waterwheel, learn about Chinese culture, and immerse themselves in the stories of the Original Peoples of this land. The blacksmith’s forge will be hot, and the printing press will be spinning at the Cariboo Sentinel.

July 1st will see the continuation of Barkerville’s Dominion Day and the season’s opening of the Theatre Royal.

There will also be games for participants of all ages, special celebrations in Chinatown, and evening festivities at the House Hotel. Barkerville’s 8th annual Indigenous Celebration will return as a two-day event on the weekend of August 19th & 20th. Visitors will get a taste of Indigenous culture and history, and the weekend will include an artists’ market as well as games, dances, stories, and complimentary Bannock. The ever-popular Chinese Mid-Autumn Moon Festival will help close out the season on Saturday September 9th with contests, lion and dragon dances, and special evening performances at the Theatre Royal.

Annual passes for this season are already on sale at http://barkerville.shop with an early bird discount of 15% off running until March 19th.

Barkerville’s cottages and historic Kelly Guest House are booking up fast, and reservations for this summer’s campgrounds are now available with the Forest Rose opening on June 2nd followed by the Lowhee Campground on June 30th. We can hardly wait!

– Stewart Cawood Manager, Public Programming & Media, Barkerville Historic Town & park

Barkerville’s Theatre Royal entrance, 2011; photo B. Bailey

6

Barkerville’s Theatre Royal, Part 2: 1900 - 1958 royalty and Charles was an appointed Master of the Revels for the Crown.

Of course, other styles of entertainment were also of great popularity with the masses. These styles included dramas and melodramas with farcical components (referred to collectively as farces), pantomimes, ballet, operas, operettas, and comedic operas (such as Gilbert and Sullivan, active 1871-1896), and the growing popularity of British Music Hall and its American counterpart known as Vaudeville.

While the Cariboo Amateur Dramatic Association no doubt held amongst their numbers some thespians capable of deftly carrying the classics to a Cariboo audience with dignity and passion (and aspired to do so, according to the Cariboo Sentinel in late 1869), their popularity stemmed primarily from the performance of farce, opera, and additional comedic songs, satirical songs, tragi-comic songs, hymns, and ballads.

Proud new hall and theatre. Note: the lack of belfry. Image A-03761 courtesy of the Royal BC Museum.

This essay continues and elaborates upon our November 2022 issue which included Barkerville’s Theatre Royal Part 1: 18641900. Throughout Part 1, the social and cultural inspirations that triggered the formation of the Cariboo Literary Institute’s Glee Club in (most likely) 1864, which later developed into the Cariboo Amateur Dramatic Association in 1865, were discussed.

As we turn our focus now to the journey of Barkerville’s Theatre Royal in the early twentieth century, it is important to once again examine other influences during the latter half of the nineteenth century to better comprehend some of the cultural changes and entertainment trends of the time.

A significant influence of the era was legitimate patent theatre (serious drama and realism; the classics) which required a royal licence to perform and was reverently respected in the colony of British Columbia as demonstrated by The Keans’ tour to Victoria during December of 1864. The Keans were British performance

Interestingly, though decades had passed since the CADA’s heyday, a 1920s Barkerville schoolteacher was informed of their work by locals and noted their repute in his memoir: “On special occasions guests gathered in formal dress … and afterwards they went on to the Theatre Royal where either the drama club put on a serious play or the parts were enacted by imported talent.” The imported talent refers to a number of professional touring companies who performed in the Theatre Royal in the early 1870s. Meanwhile, it is apparent that the CADA were remembered locally as having performed legitimate theatre.

IIndeed, the very fact that the CADA named their venue the Theatre Royal, after legitimate patent theatres, indicates that whether performing farce, drama or melodrama, they took their role and contribution to gold rush society seriously, amateur or not.

7

ment acts which included magicians, jugglers, animal acts, comedians, song and dance all presented under one marquee, inspired early cinema and continues to influence pop culture today. The mid-1970s to early 1980s, The Muppet Show, was a reimagining of turn-of-thecentury American Vaudeville for television, and the ubiquitous and decade’s-old Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer ‘bumper clip’ of Leo, the roaring lion, also pays homage.

A 1920s photograph of flooding down Barkerville’s main street in front of the lowered Theatre Royal (on right). Image C-09691 courtesy of the Royal BC Museum.

Regarding Music Hall, Vaudeville, and Cinema British Music Hall became a formal style in the mid-to-late 1850s within the walls of Charles Morton’s New Canterbury Hall in South London. He is responsible for making the old-time song and supper public houses gender-inclusive and available to women as well as men.

Morton’s endeavours marked the transition of the centuries-old variety taproom concert (a contemporary comparison would be a local ‘coffeehouse’ open mic event) from the informal saloon venues and public houses onto the formal and saleable stage.

Morton is, in fact, credited with coining the term “music hall,” and his efforts as an impresario, theatre producer and manager had an extraordinary influence on global theatre and the later development of American Vaudeville in the 1890s. Twice he was fined in the mid-1850s under the Theatre Act of 1843 for presenting “legitimate theatre” selections during variety performances without the licence to do so. Under Morton’s guidance, select scenes and

8

famous soliloquies from reputable classics were being interspersed between the musical entertainment and variety acts. These ‘patent theatre’ fines were well documented and in turn became excellent publicity serving to spur the popularity of the music hall variety entertainment.

While similar to British Music Hall, Vaudeville would find its footing in North America throughout the latter quarter of the nineteenth century. Distinguishable from the former for its pronounced lack of drama, social commentary and satire, Vaudeville tended to be a light farcical entertainment consisting of ten to fifteen unrelated acts, but this was by no means a steadfast rule. The defining absurdist element of “farce” could often be explained by the utter lack of association between the variety of acts, paired with an emphasis on comedic relief.

Of particular influence to the burgeoning art form were the farcical and melodramatic elements of Parisian Boulevard Theatre, the Italian Commedia Dell’Arte-inspired elements of stock characters, slapstick humour, and physical/circus theatre in Pantomime, as well as Vaux-de-Vire (satirical lyrics sung to popular airs) from the Valde-Vire region of Normandy, France.

Vaudeville’s influence in Western Culture and the combined curation of unrelated entertain-

Both British Music Hall and Vaudeville are derived from a resistance to regulatory bodies defining and licensing legitimate theatre, but where British Music Hall still celebrated and incorporated components of satire, “legitimate theatre” plays, and drama, Vaudeville tended to root itself more in escapism, comedy, and spectacle. Where British Music Hall began to gain traction in the mid-1850s and evolved into an influential, affluent, and dominant form of entertainment by the 1870s and 1880s, Vaudeville’s peak came over two decades later.

By 1910, after six decades -a life time- of influence, British Music Hall began to dwindle in its saleable appeal. While the variety taproom concert that inspired the style has always remained vibrant in the social zeitgeist in one form or another (certainly with mid-century musical theatre composers), music hall and its venues were repurposed for a brief resurgence of more monumental, elaborate productions and historic reenactments. Many of these venues were also being transitioned into silent film cinemas, as the new moving picture medium of entertainment had been growing in popularity since its unveiling to the world in 1895.

Vaudeville, nonetheless, remained popular into the 1930s in America and celebrated a success both parallel to and symbiotic of early cinema.

Some of its greatest legacies include increasing the popularity of and maintaining the legacy of tap dance, cabaret, sketch comedy, and comedic songs.

As silent films began to transition into talkies during the mid-to-late 1920s with the technological evolution of synchronized sound, various components of Vaudeville soon found their way to the (literal) silver screen and stage performers began moonlighting on screen.

Regarding the influence of both legitimate theatre and music hall on the Cariboo Amateur Dramatic Association’s work between 1865 and 1875, it is identifiable in the archival record

that the tradition of taproom concert and saloon entertainment was alive and well in the community’s numerous saloons as well as on the stage. Not coincidentally, the traditional meaning of saloon was a house of popular entertainment.

One of the CADA’s core members, Miss Florence Wilson, had a brother in her native London, England, who managed two separate variety entertainment venues. It is possible, then, that this family connection might have had some influence on the Cariboo association’s work, but also of influence was their recorded desire to perform legitimate classical repertoire.

After all, the CADA were remembered for their ‘serious plays’ in the early twentieth century which strongly suggests that at least some serious work was indeed being presented by the association.

In the late 1860s, the Cariboo Sentinel lamented that while the CADA possessed among their numbers some members with the training, skill, and talent required to produce traditional works (designated as legitimate repertoire), that the association lacked the finances required to acquire the necessary costuming and sets considered appropriate to honour them.

The CADA, between 1865 and 1870, regularly performed farcical plays followed by variety songs in their performances. Sometimes they performed two one-act farces with variety songs in between, and sometimes they performed operas with local musicians forming the orchestra. As aforementioned, at other times they were remembered to have performed serious works (a great deal of grounded realism can certainly lend to the comedy of farce). Their benefits and concert evenings explored the realm of variety entertainment in more breadth, and it would have likely been during these latter performances that the influence of the taproom concert turned Music Hall was most prominently displayed.

A Changing Economy and Changing World The Barkerville Theatre Royal as we know it today is actually the third structure to hold the designation. This third structure acutely resembles the second, and most historically significant, theatre. This second venue was constructed post-conflagration in late 1868 and completed in early 1869. It was both a theatre and community hall and held residence on the second storey of the Williams Creek Fire Brigade Engine House.

This joint purpose building was a unique and symbiotic frontier arrangement representing community compromise, owing to the ingenuity of one Edward Howman who proposed the union to the benefit of both parties. The resulting structure, known ubiquitously as the Theatre Royal, was a symbolic demonstration (through the dual use of the edifice) of different forms of public service housed in one magnificent structure. Outwardly opulent and inwardly utilitarian, it was eventually adorned with a sounding belfry for a fire alarm, following the late arrival of a chapel bell on July 7th, 1871.

The space was always intended to serve as both a theatrical house and a community hall, and its

first celebratory ball was held a full three weeks prior to its completion by the William’s Creek Fire Brigade during Christmas of 1868. The CADA’s official opening performance of their new venue would take place on January 16th, 1869. The association continued performing steadily from 1869 through 1870, but alas, their performances dwindled as key members left the Cariboo for either other ventures or the siren call of family and home.

By this time, Barkerville’s first rush was also dwindling which created complications for the association. The region had, only a few years earlier, been occupied by a fluctuating 4,000 to 6,000 settler-pioneers and prospectors.

Although, a contradictory oral report, supposedly made by then librarian and later Gold Commissioner, John Bowron, suggested (this was likely misinterpreted by the report’s recipient who relayed this information to historian, Isabel Bescoby, in the early 1930s) that there were as many as 10,000 persons collected along William’s Creek in 1864.

Either way, those days of excitement and mayhem passed, and what had been Old (pre-fire) Barkerville was now known as New (post-fire) Barkerville. The new version of the community was seeing miners leave for prospects northwest in the Omineca, or southeast into the silver and

The Theatre Royal on July 1st, 1898 or 1900, lowered with the first storey removed. Image C-09535 courtesy of the Royal BC Museum.

9

professional touring companies (Lafont and Wards, Martin the Wizard, a Chinese Variety Troupe, and the McGinely Family Variety Troupe) used the Theatre Royal as a receiving destination from which to entertain for extended residencies. While they did, annual spring freshets, or floods, gradually destroyed the first storey and engine hall portion of the theatre. A number of contractors throughout the 1870s, beginning in 1872 and continuing through the decade, were commissioned to saw-off and remove the bottom storey of the structure and to restabilize the foundation of the CADA’s auditorium space. A lawsuit in the latter half of the decade was noted by Judge Eli Harrison regarding ownership and responsibility for the reparations to the structure.

Captain Jack Crawford. Image courtesy of Richard Wright Collection.

gold mines of the north central United States.

Despite the exodus, many families that had made their homes and lives in Barkerville steadfastly held to their new roots. This included the prominent Chinese community in Barkerville which would see a significant surge of growth over the next two decades. Hotels, saloons, government institutions, and mercantile shops still operated. Large mining companies now dominated, but the small independent and hydraulic operations still made pay.

What had begun as the building’s obvious second storey, in a short manner of only three years, had begun its transition of equipoise into a street level main storey. Because of this, the theatre auditorium was also being used as a hall for fire brigade meetings and other community events. It was the preferred venue for community dances and celebratory balls, church institute concerts, and was a rentable venue for lecture engagements. The CADA’s performances, however, ceased for nearly three years between 1873 and 1875. From that point onward, the amateurs performed intermittently and inconsistently with extended durations between performances.

The Poet Scout In 1878, a bona fide American celebrity took temporary residence in Barkerville after convalescing from a significant stage accident.

He had been shot in the leg while performing an historical reenactment with Colonel Buffalo Bill Cody.

Captain Jack Crawford, known also as “The Poet Scout” and the “Original Boy Scout,” was a former American army scout, a poet, an actor, and was also a fellow performer and associate of Wild Bill Hickock. Known for performing cavalry reenactments with Buffalo Bill, for his skill with a six-shooter, and lauded as being a masterful storyteller, Crawford also performed melodrama and wrote his own highly popular solo monologue-driven autobiographical show: The Camp, Field, and Trail.

Barkerville barber and diarist, Wellington Delaney Moses, noted in his journal that Crawford performed ten (perhaps more) times on the Theatre Royal stage, including at least one benefit to raise funds for the Royal Cariboo Hospital.

While Barkerville truly was very different from the contemporary myth of the American Western Gunslinger and the frontier living of the 1870s and 1880s, partially for British influence, partially for a formidable judicial system, and partially for its mountainous geography,

Barkerville wasn’t the frenzied, sleepless camp that it had been in late 1862 after the Barker Company’s August 17th payload discovery at 52 feet. Nor was it the hastily erected “Boom Town” comprising both itself and Cameronton that had been haphazardly laid-out despite best intentions in a mixture of frontier convenience and necessity over the next two years. It also wasn’t the growing and thriving community and economic centre it had become and maintained during the mid-sixties prior to the town-razing fire of September 16th, 1868.

Barkerville was now an actual town.

The new theatre had cost a small fortune to construct and the CADA struggled financially to manage the misfortune of regional economic decline paired with an increasing want of skilled members. Between 1869 and 1872,

10

[Presumably] October, 1937. The Final Gathering: Days O’ ‘69. Image C-09664 courtesy of the Royal BC Museum.

Capt. Jack Crawford is still one of those select individuals, one of the seeds of truth as it were, that the popular revisionist American myth of twentieth century cinema and literature grew from.

It is in this way, and others, that the Cariboo’s connection to western mythology and society is not quite as removed as is often asserted. In fact, a number of former Barkerville residents would venture south into the Black Hills of South Dakota to take temporary residence in the now (and then) infamous community of Deadwood during the mid-1870s. Perhaps this is where Crawford first learned of Barkerville during his travels? Deadwood, in turn, was relatively recently popularized only two decades ago in a fascinating –albeit gritty and sophisticatedly uncouth– historically-influenced fictional television series spanning three seasons and a 2019 film.

Capt. Jack Crawford was deeply impacted by his stay in the Cariboo and wrote poetry about his experiences along William’s Creek.

His tenure on the Theatre Royal stage may well mark the first solo-performer historical show performed in the region (in what has now become a long interpretative and ‘edu-tainment’ legacy of solo-performer biographical plays and discourses performed to expound upon the Cariboo Gold Rush society of the 1860s).

Little else is known regarding the activity of the CADA in the 1880s aside from oral history indicating that the odd performance still took place, such as school concerts and plays. By the early 1890s, the CADA had expanded their scope of volunteer recreation and rebranded as the Cariboo Amateur Dramatic and Athletic Association. It is unclear if amateur dramatics continued in the venue after the turn of the century, but if they did, they were few and far between and would have most likely been neighbourhood events.

The Theatre Royal in a New Century In the early twentieth century, the Theatre Royal is known to have been used principally for community dinners, fundraisers, and celebratory dances. In particular, ceremonial Labour Day dances, which continued the tradition started in the 1860s, were still held annually.

A covered addition, built against the side of the theatre and to the right of the entrance, remained in use to store fire brigade supplies such as a two-wheel cart with coiled hose lengths and leather buckets (and the bell in the belfry was still used as the community fire alarm) implying that the brigade continued using the venue for equipment storage and training through the passing of the decades. However, at some point the WCFB disbanded and in the early thirties reformed as the Barkerville Fire Brigade.

Entirely understandable given the building’s importance in the community and its lack of regular use as a performance venue, the Theatre Royal served an additional unique purpose as the local community funeral home. One of the foyer recesses was allotted to the town’s undertaker for use as a mortuary. For how long, and during which of the first three decades of the century the space was used for this purpose, remain unknown at this time.

Throughout the first two decades of the century, Barkerville remained a healthy community and sustained businesses, boarding houses, restaurants, hotels, and residences. The Chinese population was again growing in the community through immigration and economy, marking a renewed vitality of mining and another notable regional gold rush. While placer mining never ceased in the region, lode exploration was increasing, and, in particular, hydraulic mining continued extensively in the surrounding hills, mountains, and valleys.

Of significance on the global stage was Canada’s joining the Great War against Germany on August 4th, 1914. Although military service remained a volunteer activity until 1917, the First World War undoubtedly had an impact on local labour forces.

Following the war, and not unlike the current impact of the Covid Coronavirus pandemic over recent years, the Spanish Flu was brought home by Canadian troupes in 1918 and wreaked havoc for nearly two years. In British Columbia, it took the lives of approximately 4,000 people (the equivalent of 37,000 persons today by comparative population density).

Meanwhile, the long-gestating Temperance movement saw nationwide Prohibition during the war years, which in turn inspired a profitable bootlegging industry in Barkerville.

So, while the townsite was no doubt impacted by world events, and even though there were only about 250 residents remaining in the once thriving rural metropolis (about the current size of the present-day neighbouring community of Wells), Barkerville wasn’t quiet and it certainly wasn’t a Ghost Town; in 1924, Barkerville was declared a National Historic Site for its economic significance to the province and as the terminus of the Cariboo Waggon Road.

In 1923, the racially motivated and discriminatory Exclusion Act was passed in Canada barring Chinese immigration until 1943.

Because of this, the Chinese population (and in turn the entire population) in Barkerville, the surrounding townsites, and Cariboo, began a significant decline.

11

Labour Day Celebrations in Barkerville, 1938 or 1939; Dave Johnson photo. Note: Newly built Barkerville Community Hall background right. Image courtesy of the Barkerville Archives. Image courtesy of the Barkerville Archives.

The Second Regional Boom

It was four years after the war and two years after the Spanish Flu pandemic, in 1922, that a seasoned sixty year-old prospector named Fred Wells arrived in Barkerville. He began working the Rainbow and Sanders Claims on Cow Mountain in 1926 with a determined inkling that the mountain, ever so slightly northwest of Barkerville and across from other 1860s gold mining locales such as Red Gulch and Mosquito Creek, contained the source of Barkerville’s legendary (but geologically logical) motherlode.

At that time, the Theatre Royal was used by a young teacher named Noel Duclos for student performances. In his memoir, he would reminisce over the old theatre’s piano, obviously one of significance for an unspecified reason, and noted that many backdrops from the days of CADA remained in the theatre during his time in the community.

12

In 1929, the dawning of the Great Depression began to draw many struggling individuals from urban centres back to rural gold mining.

Whether it was fantasy, allure, or desperation, many began to see Barkerville once again as a hopeful chance for opportunity in trying times.

Barkerville’s population had been fluctuating somewhere between 200 and 300 residents, but gold was a harbinger of hope in hard times and change came quickly: in 1934 gold was worth $35/oz ($730.66/oz today), Fred Wells had, in fact, proven extremely rich ore in Cow Mountain, a new townsite was being constructed below Cow Mountain by the Wells Townsite Company, workers were pouring into the region to be employed by either the Cariboo Gold Quartz company or the new upstart on the mountain adjacent: the Island Mountain Company, and Barkerville, too, saw many new arrivals settle within its bounds. It was said that most of the married couples working for the Cariboo Gold Quartz relocated to Barkerville.

Either way, Barkerville blossomed to approximately 600 residents.

Prospector, writer, historian, and historic conservationist, Fred Ludditt, first moved to Barkerville in 1930 and sensed very quickly, even after its first seventy years of existence, that Barkerville was historically significant in a way that most towns and communities weren’t: both the province and the nation owed debts to Barkerville, and there was more: the wilderness, the community, the spirit of the place; it all called to him.

When the townsite of Wells really began to come into its own in the mid-thirties with around 2,000 residents and rows of new townsite homes, two cinemas, stores, restaurants, and other amenities, Ludditt recalls a number of the older Barkerville homes being transported to Wells across the meadow on a snow road.

A Barkerville resident of six decades, Fred Tregillus, had watched some of the old homes pass by from his front porch and remarked to Ludditt, “They’ll be bringing them all back to Barkerville someday.”

Ludditt befriended, explored with, and interviewed many of the old prospectors still living

in Barkerville in the thirties through fifties, and he interviewed the relatives of those individuals who had passed on. Over the next quarter century, he would become one of the most instrumental activists in conserving Barkerville and in inspiring its designation, protection, and conservation as an historic site. Regardless, he expressed regret and perhaps an undeserved guilt in his 1969 book Barkerville Days (revised in 1980) for not having done more sooner (not that he could have), for it was during the 1930s and 1940s that much of historic Barkerville was lost to time – including the extraordinary Theatre Royal.

Meanwhile, drawn to Barkerville by a loss of work brought on by the Depression, a twenty-one year-old Howard Harris remarked of his arrival in 1932, “One of the most eye catching buildings I had noticed when I first set foot into Barkerville was the old Theatre Royal with the year 1869 prominently displayed on the front.” He also recalled noticing two stout poles on the north side of the theatre acting as buttresses to support that side of the structure due to a failing foundation.

Eventually employed by McKinnon’s store, Harris also became a prospector, banjo player, and volunteer fire fighter in the community. He recalled many fine dances in the Theatre Royal as well as being roped into the three-person “Barkerville Orchestra” during his first dance in ‘32, only to find comfort beside the very capable Alf Tregillus with his button-chromatic accordion, and Alf ’s mother, Mrs. Mary Tregillus, on the piano. Harris noted the community joy present on the dance floor, and that all the ladies, young and old, single or coupled, rarely received a reprieve from the festivities and didn’t appear to mind in the least. Dance was in Barkerville’s very DNA. The event continued until 1am and it was the first time he’d heard an old hymn, Come to the Saviour, Make no Delay, played as a two-step.

The Barkerville Recreation Association Around 1933, an organization formed called the Barkerville Recreation Association; indicating that the former Cariboo Amateur Dramatic and Athletic Association had not been active

recently enough to be reinstated, likely not since prior to 1900.

The BRA marked out a badminton court in the auditorium space and also hung basketball hoops; a local basketball team of five (including Harris) was formed and several home games against Quesnel were played in the theatre. The BRA also continued to host the ever-so-popular community dances regularly; affirming again that dancing was in Barkerville’s social and community blood.

During the same year, Fred and Otto Becker built a log generator powerhouse for Barkerville that used a gasoline motor pulled from an International tractor. Most of the houses in the community were soon wired and residents coordinated to ensure a fair and consistent use of the electricity during evenings. One of the priority structures for this upgrade was, of course, the Theatre Royal. When an event was held, all residents cooperated to ensure enough electricity was available for the space.

This powerhouse also meant that the world of cinema could now be delivered direct to Barkerville. A resident named Jim Delhanty coordinated with the BRA to install a film projector and silver screen in the Theatre Royal, though it is very likely that modifications had to be made to the original proscenium stage in order for him to do so.

Beginning in September of 1933, for one night a week each week, and continuing for fourteen months until November of 1934, the Theatre Royal was rechristened “The Northwestern Theatre” and rural residents savoured the talkies in remote Barkerville. The first film presented was Zane Grey’s romantic western The Golden West.

Unfortunately, in November of 1934, the Fire Marshall, J. A. Thomas, dealt a death knell to the historic venue by determining it unsafe and condemning it as a fire hazard. Over the next few years the nearby townsite of Wells would have two brand new cinemas built: The Sunset Theatre and the Lode Theatre, so residents were not wanting for media entertainment, but one of the Cariboo’s most iconic and important historic structures was now left empty, unused, and unmaintained: a sure-fire recipe for the rapid deterioration of any older building.

Because the venue was already noted for its remarkable and coloured history, an oppor-

The Theatre Royal, Barkerville, mid-30s postcard; note: wired with electrical. Image courtesy of the Barkerville Archives.

tunity to raise funds for restoration presented itself. It is curious, therefore, that further efforts weren’t made at the time to do so in order to maintain and re-support the invaluable historic edifice. Harris’ memoir seems to unintentionally indicate that the surge of newcomers to Barkerville in the thirties, those who cherished the town but had no legacy ties to it, were more excited by the prospect of potentially building a replacement hall.

As aforementioned, Fred Ludditt expressed a deep regret for not saving many of the historic buildings that were looted, dismantled, demolished, or burnt during the 1930s and 1940s to make way for new structures during the local building boom and economic surge of the era.

He had been working some distance away at a claim site and was often saddened to return home every few weeks only to find a familiar and historically significant structure no longer present.

In fairness to other residents of the time, forward thinkers such as Ludditt and lifetime resident, Miss Lottie Bowron, who eventually campaigned extensively for site conservation, were few and far ahead of their time. For most, the

13

This mid-1940s photo of the Barkerville Hotel (Kelly Hotel at the time) was taken by William S. Lythgoe. Note: northwest corner and entrance steps of the Barkerville Community Hall showing the mansed roof. Image E-05229 courtesy of the Royal BC Museum.

vast majority of the old buildings in Barkerville were expendable. Perhaps in the same way that someone in the 2020s of today might look at the architecture, wiring, and materials from a standard affordable family home built in the 1970s: if the structure is only fifty years-old and outdated, why not tear it down and rebuild anew?

For some, though, the Theatre Royal wasn’t a tired hall in need of retirement, it was a symbol of great camaraderie, community endurance, and perseverance against the harsh realities of the Cariboo climate. It was Barkerville’s Theatre Royal, a Phoenix born from the ashes, and those living then still remembered that clearly.

John Hamilton, for example, as transcribed

by Charles Clowes, would elaborate on the transition from Old Barkerville to New Barkerville extensively in a 1936 issue of Macleans Magazine.

14

Out with the Old, In with the New – A Final Hurrah Barkerville was full of a resurgence of youthful individuals, new residents, and there was an exuberance expressed by many simply for being able to live in an economically healthy region during a depressed era. A committee organized

by Bill Ward (who would become the editor of BC’s Wildlife Journal in the 1960s) was formed to raise funds to construct a new hall.

Ludditt fondly recalls one particular impromptu evening parade formed of a party of six, presumably sometime between late 1934 and late 1937. Led by gas lamp and accordion, these six marched triumphantly down Barkerville’s main street to rouse residents from quiet evening routines to join in the revelry. A crowd assembled and all rambled together into the vacant Theatre Royal, accordion still playing, and danced the night away in fun and frolic like the days of yore.

As the Theatre Royal sat empty and unused (at least unofficially) during those last thirty-six months, a committee was appointed to arrange a final dance and fundraiser in the space.

An article regarding the scheduled demolition, written by BC Liberal MLA, Louis LeBourdais, was published by the Vancouver Daily Province on Friday, October 22nd of 1937.

Brief but comprehensive, it offers a vivid history of the cultural and provincial significance of the building and reads like an obituary penned for a beloved friend. For some, it was. The issue date of the article suggests that the final dance was likely held a week later on Saturday, October 30th.

LeBourdais notes, “One of Cariboo’s best known landmarks – the Theatre Royal at Barkerville – is being torn down to make way for a more modern structure… built by volunteer labour in 1869… the building served the community as fire hall, dance hall, and recreation centre for nearly 70 years.”

Meanwhile, Bill McGowan, a young Scotsman, had been appointed by the committee to canvass numerous businesses and had done

very well in his fundraising efforts. “All of the businesses,” Harris notes, “including a couple of well-known bootleggers and the madam of the sporting house, contributed generously.” A donation of lumber for the new hall was also made, which would have reduced construction costs of the new venue significantly.

The plan for the evening’s climactic conclusion was for an actor costumed as Father Time, accompanied by some ladies also dressed in historic costume, to give a theatrical presentation of sorts at midnight on the hour. The stage was adorned with a drum set, the old piano, and saxophones, and it was decorated with hanging Union Jacks and a “Days O’ ‘69” Banner.

Shortly after Father Time’s appearance, according to Bill Ward writing for the Wildlife Review thirty-years later, the entire crowd had gathered outside for the final ringing of the bell which was to be followed by fireworks and more revelry. When the bell-pull was engaged, however, the 200 pound instrument which had

been hanging for 66 years came crashing to the ground and narrowly missed a bystander, Vince Hubert, by a mere six inches. Ward noted, “The superstitious pondered the strangeness of the thing… the bell that had hung for 68 years (sic) had to fall down at the precise moment when it was to ring out for the last time! Was it coincidence?”

Provided that it was the community’s young blood eagerly campaigning for a new hall as a replacement, one is left to wonder if that ageing historic theatre was making a final plea for help, or if it was conceding that it had succeeded in its purpose and was ready to go? Perhaps the old cast brackets of the bell had simply worn and rusted and chose that particular significant moment to fail… but if there’s one thing this author has learned over the years, it is that coincidence is very rarely ever such. After all, if the final dance was indeed held on October 30th, 1937, the bell would have crashed to the street on All Hallow’s Eve.

The Barkerville Community Hall Shortly after that final dance, the old theatre was dismantled. A new hall, erected in nearly the same spot under the guidance of a young and talented Danish carpenter named Karl Peterson, was constructed before the year’s end. This seemingly unrealistic timeline of two months, provided the potentially harsh Cariboo winters, was a nearly identical timeline for the construction of the former theatre sixty-eight years prior.

Karl Peterson and his young family had been residents of Barkerville for about five years by this time, and his construction company is credited with having built many of the 1930s and 1940s structures in the town.

Peterson’s new Theatre Royal, which was to be known as the Barkerville Community Hall for

Barkerville bustling during Vancouver Board of Trade visit, mid ‘30s. Note the Theatre Royal (belfry, background centre right) up the street. Image C-09674 courtesy of the Royal BC Museum.

15

the next two decades (a mere blip in Barkerville’s current 161 years of existence) was a very different structure visually and architecturally from the exterior, but Peterson, and perhaps the community, ensured that the interior paid homage to the venue it was replacing. Regardless, it was noted by at least one individual who had been present in Barkerville in the mid-twenties, and who had worked in the old theatre, that the new space had an “altered appearance,” suggesting a space reminiscent of the venue it was replacing but not an exact replicate.

This new hall, which decades later would be rechristened the third Theatre Royal, was built on the generosity and fundraising of the community, as well as a significant and instrumental donation of lumber. Supposedly, the floorboards of the hall were repurposed from the 1869 building. As this new hall was being built on a budget, built on the same lot (albeit eighteen feet to the east), and as some of the flooring (apparently five layers worth) would have likely been in excellent condition, the foundations of this local oral history are based on practicality and likely true. After all, there’s a little bit of the old in everything new (especially in the enterprising Cariboo).

As for the interior of the new Community Hall, the layout of the original Theatre Royal was at the core of inspiration including the foyer, balcony, and proscenium stage. The size of the hall, too, is similar in width and length.

One clear defining and unique difference, however, is that the Community Hall boasted a mansard, or manse, roof. This gives the venue a barn-like appearance as multiple pitches form a four-sided ceiling arch; or six, if one includes the slightly pitched walls.

An oral history shared by an individual who had it passed on to them by Mildred Tregillus in the 1970s elaborates that the mansard roof was preferred exclusively due to the fevered popularity of badminton in the community. Of which, Barkerville hosted a fiercely competitive team and was reputed to have used the townsite’s mountainous altitude as an advantage against visiting teams whenever possible.

Community Halls of the 1930s were architecturally designed to accommodate a plenitude of uses spanning from sporting events to hosting formal balls to receiving professional performances. As such, the legacy and intent of the

original Theatre Royal was clearly maintained in the design of its replacement. An added and perhaps unintentional benefit of the mansard ceiling and wood panelling is that the additional surfaces and arch formation provide some of the finest and most enviable venue acoustics available in an unamplified performance house, being almost cathedral-like in structure (cathedrals were designed to carry sound). The voice of the elocutionist or singer literally rings back at them from the rear balcony when they are projecting on stage.

After its construction, from 1938 until 1958, the Barkerville Community Hall was used primarily for badminton practice and tournaments. The community endured frozen gold prices hindering industry, and, of course, the Second World War changed society, priority, economy, and technology. The young town of Wells, 7km away by road, flourished but settled into routine. There, amenities were readily available for Barkerville residents. And as for theatre, the days of British Music Hall were decades passed, and Vaudeville was largely forgotten having evolved into book musicals.

Playful cinema began to transition into film noir, and narrative-based mainstage musicals, such as 1927’s Show Boat, harboured-in the golden age of twentieth century musical theatre which was dominated by Rogers and Hammerstein during the 1940s. The development of wax cylinders, gramophones, and radio brought fond taproom concert songs into the family home, and as conflict progressed, many new wartime melodies became ever more popular and culturally dominant.

It wasn’t until after the Second World War that more locals and residents of Barkerville and Wells began to see Barkerville (once again reduced in size to a few hundred residents), its history, and its buildings, just as those that were kindred with Fred Ludditt and Miss Bowron already had: in need of preservation and conservation. The Barkerville Historic Society was formed, the Barkerville Restoration Committee was formed, the Barkerville Historic and Development Company was formed, lobbying took place, and eventually the Wells-Barkerville Centennial Committee was formed. Barkerville was undergoing a metamorphosis and would soon be reborn not as an active town, but as a destination museum and historic site.

One story was coming to a close, but another was beginning.

Just as the bell tumbled from the old Theatre Royal belfry shortly after midnight on an autumn night in 1937, perhaps as if to indignantly challenge Replace me?, the story of Barkerville’s Theatre Royal had only endured a temporary intermission between acts. It is a story that entwines both comedy and tragedy and evokes the muses Thalia and Melpomene. For, little known at the time, the Theatre Royal’s stage deck would again be tread by professional artists and its auditorium benches and balcony soon filled for a new age of travellers from the globe around.

This, of course, is only all the more poetic and significant should those very boards, in fact, have been recovered and reused from the original 1869 theatre - perhaps verifying the old idiom that patience is a virtue. Though, there’s little point in practising patience without a little perseverance. If it weren’t for the people that loved Barkerville then, it wouldn’t be present to be loved by the generations of today: the present Theatre Royal included.

As Shakespeare so acutely observed, “For all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.” Until Part 3, dear readers Copyright Brendan Bailey, 2023. This entry has been condensed from a chapter in the forth-coming book: Where the Past is Present: Loving Living History in Barkerville, B.C, by the essay’s author. For References and Sources, please inquire with the author. If any errors or omissions have been made, please note that research is ongoing and the author would appreciate your contacting him through the society for further discussion, photos, sources, and citations.

–Brendan Bailey