The Barkerville Historic Town and Park will now be displaying their new archaeological findings for the 160th anniversary of the gold discovery.
In fall of 2021, the Theatre Royal building was raised and excavated along with new foundation being added. The building was closed down due to covid already, which made this the perfect time to get this job done.
During that time, Cribbing of a mine shaft was found, when Dawn Ashley discovered it was the original discovery shaft of Billy Barker.
The findings will be present at the National Historic Site and Provincial Heritage Property on Wednesday August 17th. However, the findings will only be displayed on Discovery Day.
“They’ll be in storage, they’ll all be cataloged, and that way if anybody wants to come do some research, we have good relations with a number of post secondary institutions, people can come to Barkerville, figure out exactly what it is they’re wanting to look at.” says James Douglas, Director of Public Programming and Media for Barkerville Historic Town and Park.
“With our curatorial staff, they can then bring those items out.”
As for the mine shaft itself, Douglas says that they aren’t letting anybody see it yet. They will be looking to do that in the future.
For more information on the Barkerville Historic Town and Park, you can find their website here.