Book Review

British Columbiana: A Millennial in a Gold Rush Town

British Columbiana is a fascinating, thought-provoking exercise in the style of gonzo: wherein the author is situated as the protagonist in a documented series of actual events; the first-person narrative varying between self-realization and self-deprecation through intimate emotional exploration. Teed’s former peers are amalgamated into composite archetypal characters and represented under pseudonyms. Meanwhile, significant details, dates, and events are altered to either justify documented emotional interpretations or to serve the storytelling. Nonetheless, Teed proves to be an excellent storyteller, make no bones about it. Captivating writing and a challenging commitment to intimate inner monologue serve the forward momentum of the piece. This book is hard to put down.

Teed, holding an MA in Medieval Archeology, was hired on as Curatorial Intern in Barkerville Historic Town & Park for the winter of 2018/2019 and then took a contract as one of the site’s Historical Interpreters portraying both a Victorian Schoolmistress and interpreting Edwardian domestic life for the May-September tourism season. While she only experienced a brief window in Barkerville and the neighbouring community of Wells, about ten months, she worked both an administrative position removed from tourism interaction as well as an acting and interpretation position with consistent tourism interaction. This gives her a curious viewpoint from which to reflect upon her experiences.

Not dissimilar to Anne Walsh’s 1984 young adult fiction novel Your Time, My Time (which was both written and set in Barkerville in 1980), Teed has captured the site in a precious moment in time. Her work is both fragile and jarring. As a long-time interpreter and Barkerville employee myself, I found elements of Columbiana sweepingly nostalgic. 2019 was the last season to date where the site was not operating in some form of deficit due to provinical environmental detriment caused by either wildfire, flood, or pandemic. While reading, I found myself mourning what, at the time, had seemed so much a relatively regular season typical of any other. (Although, it too, had been preceded by two wildfire seasons; the last truly normal season with regular visitation numbers in excess of 65,000 persons had been 2016.)

More significantly, it was also the last season that the interpretive programming was divided into a series of independent performance contracts all working under the umbrella of the site: the Daily-Life/Street Interpretation cast which included tours, scenes, multiple discourses, and a regular presence as well as the blacksmith and printing house; the Chinese interpretation contract which included tours, discourses, and cultural programming; the Early Justice interpretation lecture-shows and trial reenactments held in the Richfield Courthouse and Methodist Church; the Theatre Royal contract which was producing multiple daily productions in repertory and had been operated, at that time, by Newman & Wright Productions for 16 years; the Original Peoples programming offering an honest, educational, subversive, welcoming, and complex alternative to traditional colonial narrative; the Domestic Contract comprising a few daily Victorian school lessons and Edwardian-era rural domestic life; and the Mining Interpretation contract which included three daily Cornish Waterwheel comedic shows and demonstrations as well as numerous discourses.

Since 2020, all of the above individual theatrical troupes have now been brought together as one curatorial interpretive cast that rotates through all of the aforementioned programming as a slightly smaller troupe in reparatory with one show daily for each component of the programming.

So, Teed, perhaps unknowingly, captured an essence of Barkerville lost to another time, a time before the entire world was rocked and changed by a once-in-a-century collective experience of pandemic. This lends a documentative aspect to her narrative that is celebratory in some aspects and melancholic in others. This makes British Columbiana very unique; offering a profile, for better or for worse, of a very different era - one that is still so recent that the memories are almost touchable in their clarity.

That Teed sat down and took the time to share her story speaks volumes to its impact on her. She experienced a coming-of-age during her time in the community and site (often universal for most first-time interpreters). Teed’s vulnerability and observational honesty is brave, even if it is cutting at times.

Not all those who have discovered their own essence in the pages (disguised, sometimes only translucently, under another a name) have felt themselves fairly portrayed, fully understood, or that the situational circumstances were entirely accurate. It has proven challenging for some of those who interacted with Teed, or were associates or friends of Teed’s, to separate her emotional reality from their reality. Or, to separate the fiction applied for the sake of storytelling from the facts of the situations documented as non-fiction. However, Columbiana is an emotional experience, an inner-monologue presented as if fact. An interpretation. In this way, Teed’s writing reminds of a few philosophical and psychological realities:

1) While we are all the protagonists in our own lives, our personal perceptions of ourselves are not usually the perceptions of others.

2) Our own conditioning plays in how we comprehend or react to the values, opinions, circumstances, or stimulus presented to us.

3) While we may be the hero in one person’s story, we will inevitably be the villain in another’s (and often we will be blissfully unaware in either circumstance).

4) There isn’t a person out there in the world who isn’t navigating their own very personal and intimate life, undergoing some sort of learning curve replete with successes and challenges, entirely private and unperceived by others.

5) How we approach our challenges and emotions determines how we interact with others in our environment.

There is an overarching metaphor present in the entire story. It is the account of a lost soul seeking purpose. Something so common for those whose first twenty-five years of life are dedicated to meeting systematic educational expectations, and who then suddenly find themselves accomplished yet free of academic structure for the first time. Finding herself in this position, Teed receives an overwhelming education through experience, falls in love with a place, falls in and out of love with some of the people present with her, undergoes a series of trials and tribulations, and then ultimately comes to feel that she has outgrown the place and found renewed confidence in herself as an adult.

This follows the arch of a first relationship: the learning of another person, their blemishes and beauty, their complexity and perplexity, their joys, angers, fears, and sadness, their triggers, their allergies, their obsessions and patterns, their expectations and desires, and ultimately learning all of these things about one’s self during the process.

Barkerville, if personified, appears to represent Teed’s first love. The sweet intimacies, the good memories, the self-defining foundational memories, the challenging perspectives, the differences in opinion, the vast degrees of life experience, and the devastating moments when you realize that while you might have some influence on your partner, that you ultimately have no control or ownership over their actions or decisions and that they may fundamentally disagree with you or eventually choose to leave you. This can lead to the discovery of self-confidence and boundaries and the understanding of the importance of clear communication. These themes are all present in Teed’s work whether intended or not.

A wonder, confusion, curiousity and fascination with Barkerville as well as the people who bring it to life is steeped in every page. Teed makes two brief, but enormously apt, observations about Barkerville Historic Town & Park: “Interpreters were the lifeblood of Barkerville, the public face,” and, “History would always be there, as would the financial and bureaucratic barriers preventing the government from funding it properly.”

In other words, Teed came to understand what so many politicians, bureaucrats and provincial administrators over the last six and half decades have not (and frankly, dating even further back to nearly 160 years): Barkerville is important and the people who maintain and bring Barkerville to life are important, no matter the present political climate, funding trends, or causes. It is not reconstructed, it perseveres. Barkerville isn’t just a place, it is something different, something rare and unique, something visceral and real, and people fall in love with it just as they do with the people in their lives… heck, even a Millennial in a Gold Rush Town.

When it comes to seeing some of Barkerville backstage (and I do stress only some; in fact, almost exclusively the experience of seasonal newcomers who lack prior context or legacy connections), British Columbiana provides a rare insight. I highly recommend it, grain of salt and all. It reminded me of when I first fell in love with Barkerville myself, and all of the ups and downs experienced since.

More so, it reminded me of falling in love with my wife in the site. She, while her character was portrayed as naïve and infantile in the narrative, was actually already a competent, assertive, respected and oft-sought professional in the park (and southwest BC) with her comprehensive stage manager, production manager, technician/designer, and administration background. Evidencing, once again, that perception is often only an opinion or a perceived and uninformed notion. Teed’s inner narrative is her own honest reflection, but it does not always reflect knowledge of reality. But, isn’t this the case for us all? People are simply who we interpret them to be until we allow ourselves the opportunity to be enlightened.

Perhaps contradictory to local opinion, I devoured this book. I found it to be very brave… though, I do question whether the editor and publisher should have encouraged a little more separation between fact and fiction in the narrative to spare the hearts of those who can piece themselves together in the parsing. It is very funny, but often at the expense of real people who are portrayed as foils to the protagonist’s narrative. Regardless, Teed’s affection and bemused curiousity for Barkerville remains apparent and that’s part of what makes her version of events such a compelling read. And, frankly: this is Teed’s story, Teed’s inner monologue, Teed’s memories, Teed’s perception (that is key), and Teed’s take-away; that all has emotional value. This was a page turner, and it brought back a lot of memories for me. Some altered for the narrative, but based on perception none-theless. At least that was my take-away… as an older millennial in the gold rush town

You can find British Columbiana: A Millennial in a Gold Rush Town at the Eldorado in Barkerville, Books and Company in Quesnel and Prince George, on Amazon, or on your preferred e-reader. Enjoy.

– Brendan Bailey