Blog #4 – Kayla Brock

July 30, 2018 2:14 pm Published by Kayla Brock 3 Comments

Hello again! I cannot believe we are approaching the end of July. We only have 5 more weeks of work left. It’s crazy how fast time is going by this summer; it’s hard to imagine I’ll be nose deep in my studies in about 6 weeks time.

I promised I’d focus a bit on some Quesnel/Cariboo tourism, so I’m choosing to blog about “Billy Barker Days” this time around.

To start out with a little history, William “Billy” Barker essentially made the Cariboo goldrush famous. He immigrated to the Cariboo from England after various attempts and failures at seeking gold throughout California. He and his party first discovered gold in Williams Creek. But, his biggest claim, however; was that of Stout’s Gulch (down river from Williams Creek), where he pulled nearly 60 ounces (1,700 g) of gold. Due to his success, Billy founded the town “Barkerville” which was set up around the entirety of his claim.

Today, nearly 150 years post-goldrush, Quesnel and its surrounding cities still show their pride toward Billy and his making of history.

July 19-22 marked the 45^th annual Billy Barker Days celebration. It’s an event I had always heard about and had never attended (my mom swears I went when I was a kid, but I don’t remember). Seeing as this is my summer home, I thought I’d give it a go.

The celebration began Thursday evening (oh boy did it feel like a Friday though), when me and the other 2 Quesnel summer bloggers went to “Crash to Pass”. I think the name is self explanatory, but it’s basically a bunch of old beat up cars that go super fast around the race track, and in order to win, they must crash into one another before they’re allowed passing. There was something super satisfying about seeing old cars get demolished. I was very impressed with the turn out there, I’d estimate roughly 1,000 people in attendance.

After a long day at work on Friday (like I said, I thought Thursday was Friday, so I was feeling a little blue Friday morning knowing there were Mini Donuts at the fair and I was stuck working), I went to one of the many local pubs for a bit and went home and watched movies after binging on two McDouble’s.

I woke up Saturday morning feeling a little stuffy. I was quite lonely, as I didn’t have any family or Kamloops/Clearwater friends to share Billy Barker Days with. I laid in bed pouting for a good hour or so but thank goodness Matt convinced me to go to the fair and the Gold Dust Mall. The Gold Dust Mall is a big area with various vendors; it was worth checking out. Then, I had the world’s BEST pulled pork sandwich at Rita’s Diner (a food truck there) and watched a very impressive live band. The band was playing blue grass, which is something I would normally turn off, but there was something fascinating about the band mates’ ability to harmonize. And that fiddle; it didn’t even hurt my ears! After I engulfed my sandwich, I was peer pressured by another summer student (still cursing you, Doug) to go on a ride at the fair. Now, if you know me at all, you’ll know I’m more of a merry-go-round kind-of person. Heck, even that goes too fast for me. But, after a copious amount of peer pressure and a free ticket, next thing I knew, I was strapped in on “The Sizzler”. I will admit, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.

That night, the fair had a small magic show and a couple live bands perform. My uncle and I stopped for an ice-cream sandwich at the ice-cream truck (something else I hadn’t seen since my childhood) and set our lawn chairs up on the field. We sat there for nearly four hours listening to music. It was perfect weather, and I even got some of the classic fair lemonade. By 11pm or so, I was exhausted, and I went straight to bed.

On Sunday, the fair was still on, but I decided that I ate enough junk food (I just proofread the above paragraphs and realized how poorly I ate, but hey, who’s counting), so me and Alex went for a good ol’ kayak and watched a crazy lightning storm roll in (Video 1).

After all that pouting and moping on Saturday morning, I’d say I had the best weekend in Quesnel so far. If you have a thing for fair food and live bands, then Billy Barker Days is something I would recommend.

That’s all for this week, guys!

I only have 3 more blogs left after this one, and they’re going to be good!

-Kayla