100 Mile House, British Columbia, Canada August 15, 2013

 

Thursday we drove from Prince George to 100 Mile House. We drove to Quesnel and left the trailer at a gas station so we could go to a little Historic Town called Barkerville, which is about 50 miles from Quesnel and I didn’t want to pull the trailer the extra 100 miles. There was lots of beautiful scenery.

Barkerville is a little town made to look like what was there in the late 1880’s. There are almost 120 old buildings. Some are operating café’s, and stores. The people working there dress in period costume, and put on different talks and demonstrations through the day.  

I started to walk into the school where a reenactment of school in 1880 was going on. The school master scolded me and said “The next lesson is at half past twelve and not a minute later”. He then escorted me out the door. I wasn't offended, but thought it was kind of fun.

This old church even had a preacher dress in period costume.

The owner.

We then watched a demonstration of the waterwheel/fundraiser for the mine put on by the mine owner and his chief engineer. They actually got the wheel turning and showed how the ore was washed and the gold left behind. They got the bucket going up and down, and said it was to haul up the ore and lower the workers into the mine. As part of the act, they were trying to get 3 investors to invest $6000.00 each in the mine. When they found some gold, the owner said the deal for investors was off and told all the audience that they were on private property and were trespassing and please leave. It was very entertaining.

The chief engineer.

The wheel actually worked.

We walked around some more and found a place where a man made what looked like paintings by hand embroidery. He was very good at it. Cindy took some pictures of it and how it was done.

Close up of above picture.

We watched one demonstration where there was a political rally or debate between three of the characters. It was kind of fun.

Cindy loves pictures of flowers.

Inside one of the old stores.

 We walked around some more, until Cindy’s back got bothering her too much to continue, so we ate our lunch and drove back and got the trailer. When we got there, there were a lot of logging trucks filling up with fuel. It seemed like there were a lot of trucks loaded with poles going both ways in the highway.










 We continued going down Highway 97 and stopped in Williams Lake at the visitor center and looked around for a while. We found what looks like the perfect vehicle to take back to Alaska, if we ever return.

We continued down the road and stopped at 100 Mile House for the night. Most of the towns on this part of Highway 97, starting with 150 Mile House are named using numbers. The numbers come from when the gold miners came to Canada, with 100 Mile House for instance, was established as a post house on the Cariboo Wagon Road to the goldfields.

Thanks for visiting.