Stanley Cemetery Workbee

(Is it the Gold or the People?) Miners came to Cariboo in search of gold. Many died young, a few managed to grow old. There were First Nations, Chinese, Europeans, North Americans. Some of them never did return back to their home of origins. Catholics and Chinese passed with stories and possessions concealed. Laid to rest on the hillside in the cemetery of Richfield. Barkerville, Cameronton, Marysville, some were destined to be temporary. Permanent, is the place pioneers were laid to rest – Barkerville cemetery. Scattered along the wagon road, individuals are buried in a grave. Blessing is one of those poor souls resting alongside the road that we now pave. Welsh and Chinese miners worked to bedrock on the bed of Lightning Creek. Stanley cemetery became their final stop, as gold, they could no longer seek. Quesnel Forks was where miners, packers, Quesnel, and Cariboo Rivers did meet. A few buildings remain along with some graves that are dug as deep as 6 feet. Keithley and Snowshoe creeks were rugged, cold, clear, and gold bearing. All that remains are the graves of those that were brave and daring. Quesnellemouth, now Quesnel, became a stopping point between remote Cariboo mines and long distances to home. Pioneer cemetery on Carson Street under cover of firs, is home to those who no longer roam. Still buried, are hidden treasures, not necessarily the mineral we call gold. Little known or forgotten characters have stories yet to be uncovered and told –Grant Johannesen After heavy snow levels this past winter, a hot dry period this summer, and wind events, the Stanley cemetery is in need of repair work. Trees blew down and damaged fence rails, grave enclosure picket rails, and a bench. On October 21, 2022, Robin Grady, Grant Johannesen, and Tony McDonald spent half a day bucking up blown-down trees and removing them from the cemetery. Brush and limbs of conifers were pruned and removed along trails, fences, and from in-front of signage. The outhouse and the tri-sign displaying pictures of animals, plants, birds and information about Stanley needs the posts painted. Paint is peeling from fence rails and grave enclosure pickets and it will be necessary to sand and paint them. Snow load and blown down trees have broken about 20 fence rails, some grave enclosure pickets and a bench had a metal leg broken off. The damaged fence boards, some picket fencing, and the bench leg need to be repaired or replaced. We are pursuing a partnership with a company working in the Stanley area to help us with the work required at the Stanley Cemetery. Our hope is to action the repair work next summer. The Friends maintain the Stanley Cemetery. We recently had a kiosk built, displaying pictures and information about people buried in the cemetery. It is worth taking a side trip on Stanley Road to visit the historic cemetery that became the resting place for Chinese, Welsh, and European miners.

–Grant Johannesen Stanley Cemetery workbee photos, courtesy of Judy Johannesen

The Impact of Friends

Are you considering getting involved with the Friends of Barkerville? You might be asking yourself just how much the Friends actually do for Barkerville and the surrounding goldfields in the way of promotion, preservation, and protection. Well, the proof is in the (holiday) pudding: your annual memberships go a long way. If you know anyone who wants to help, please encourage them to start by purchasing a membership for this year (active through April 30th) and then purchasing an annual membership for 2023 in May. Current perks of being a FOB-CGHS member are listed on the front page and under the Membership Report. For those of you who are able to donate in other ways, whether it be with your time and skills, items for fundraising, or other monetary donations, the Friends have covered a lot of ground in the past: all the way from operating interpretative and demonstrative exhibits such the Cariboo Sentinel decades ago to operating a specialty store in the Barkerville Hotel for eight years. The Friends have contributed to expansive mobility upgrades, costly mobility equipment, costly first aid equipment, and new exhibit construction and development. The Friends have also funded critical research projects, publications, documentaries, archival curatorial projects, ‘edu-taining’ productions, and spent many years as a lobbyist group and funding resource. They also conduct workbees on the 1861 Gold Rush Pack Trail, Cariboo Wagon Road, Van Winkle Trail, and Grouse Creek Trail, as well as leading snowshoe hikes along Williams Creek and the Richfield Cemetery, and hikes along the 1861 Gold Rush Pack Trail. The Friends were involved in the preliminary revitalization of the Quesnelle Forks historic site in 1987 and ‘88 (long since managed by the Likely Cemetery Society), maintain the Stanley Cemetery, and have put tremendous effort into cemetery maintenance and beautification at Barkerville over the past 36 years. From maintenance, beautification, installation, restoration, innovation, curation, interpretation, to education, over the last 36 years, the Friends have contributed to it all.

If you’d like to learn more, in our previous newsletter we featured an article recapping the early years of the Friends from the mid-80s through the early-90s titled A Blast from the Past by founding chair, Richard Wright. Furthermore, a cache of archival information regarding the work of the Friends is available on our website in the form of digitised past issues of our newsletters. While Covid slowed down our momentum for two years, just like the rest of the world, here’s a little sampling of what we’ve been up to over the last couple of decades (photos courtesy of former director, Lana Fox): • 2 annual scholarships of $500 awarded to students graduating secondary school and enrolled in post-secondary, weighted by demonstration of academic aptitude in historic research pertaining to local gold rush history. • Sponsored the play Sawney’s Legacy in the 2022 Victoria Fringe Festival: site and regional promotion. • Sponsored the Bonepicker documentary series 2015-present: site and regional promotion.