Cariboo Gold Rush

Billy Barker struck the lead 52 feet down on Williams Creek on August 17, 1862, and the town named for him became the heart of a rush that carried settlement deep into British Columbia's interior. Prospectors came from California, Europe and Guangdong, and by the mid-1880s Chinese residents made up half of the Cariboo's population. Barkerville was declared a National Historic Site of Canada in 1924 and a Provincial Heritage Property in 1958. With more than 125 heritage buildings, it is now the largest living-history museum in western North America and the easiest place to see how a gold town actually worked.