The gates to the historic town of Barkerville are about to swing open.

CEO Ed Coleman says the Barkerville Heritage Trust Board made the decision on Wednesday and the vote was unanimous…

“We are going to a soft opening June 18th and that will include accommodations, including campgrounds, our shopping within the Townsite, and our restaurants, those that feel they can be ready for then.”

Coleman says they will start off by limiting the number of people that can visit…

“We will have to do a ticketed approach to limit how many people can come in. We’re going to start that out at 200, and we’ll have all that prepped up for next week so people can see how to do that.”

Coleman says they normally get around 300 visitors at this time of the year, but he says the 200 will be increased in the coming weeks…

“We’ve looked at the density factor carefully with the health inspector and we’ll go by what’s going on provincial.    We’re starting conservatively, 200, so we can make sure we have all of our procedures tight and everything is safe and positive, and we know we can bring that number up.    But we’ll do that on a very controlled basis, and in full consultation with our local health inspector and any policies Doctor Bonnie Henry puts out there, and Work Safe BC as well.”

Coleman says they will start off by opening Friday through Monday and then they’ll go to seven days a week starting on July 3rd.

He says that is also when the exhibits and public programming will start.

Cottonwood House will also be opening.

Coleman says all of the details will be on the Barkerville and Cottonwood House websites by next week…

“Full details will be available Tuesday and Wednesday on both the Cottonwood and Barkerville websites. There are so many questions that the public have.    We don’t have all their answers right now, but we will have that posted and available by Tuesday-Wednesday.”

Coleman says about 100 people will be employed to start, and they will then add incremental employees as they ramp things up.