Monday, August 15, 2016

A Little History

Today we went to Barkerville, BC for the day.  It is a heritage site and shows how it looked (more or less) in the 1860's or so during the height of the Cariboo gold rush.  

The first time I saw it was 1958, when it had not been developed.  There wasn't a lot there, although the church was still standing.  Now the town has been, shall we say, re-assembled, some buildings brought in from nearby villages, some re-built, some re-created.  Here is what Main Street looks like now:


That brown building at the end of the street is the church.  

The town was, at one point, the biggest in what was to become British Columbia.  It also had the largest Chinatown north of San Francisco.  

There were women living with their husbands (not just the ladies at the 'sporting club') and one of the displays was of clothing, both men's and women's.  


This wedding dress has machine made lace trimming both the bodice and the hem...yards of it.  

The white dress in this photo is made from muslin and hand made lace:


We talked for a while with the archeologist digging through a pile of 'spoil' which had been dug out of a part of the site for some improvements.  As we were talking, she turned over a shovel of dirt/gravel, and picked out the bottom of a small celadon bowl.  ;)

Maybe we should have gone panning for gold, after all!

Currently reading The Garden of the Hesperides by Lindsay Davies





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