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Chinese community associations raise money for Barkerville restoration

Barkerville - once among the largest towns in the Pacific Northwest - is receiving a financial boost in its quest to become a world-class heritage site from an unlikely source: new Chinese-Canadians.
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Barkerville - once among the largest towns in the Pacific Northwest - is receiving a financial boost in its quest to become a world-class heritage site from an unlikely source: new Chinese-Canadians.

A group of 130 Metro Vancouver-based Chinese community associations, at the urging of the local Chinese consulate, has raised roughly $100,000 for the restoration of a graveyard housing the remains of Chinese pioneers in Barkerville.

The funding, said Barkerville Historic Town and Park CEO Ed Coleman, will repair trail access to the graveyard, where many of the town's once-sizable Chinese migrant population are laid to rest. Funds will also be used for gravesite identification and marking efforts at the site.

The project is important, Coleman said, because it means the a generation of Chinese citizens and Chinese Canadians in B.C. will understand how deep their history runs in the province.

"Many of them were very surprised how comprehensive that history is at Barkerville... It's really something they are quite proud of, and they want to find out more."

Barkerville sprouted up from nothing practically overnight after prospector Billy Barker discovered gold in 1862 on nearby Williams Creek.

The gold rush led a number of Chinese - mostly from the southern province of Guangdong - to migrate to B.C., creating a sizable Chinese community almost two decades before the Canadian Pacific Railway was built.

"It's an excellent example of co-operation and community between people of different cultures, and it also provided a jump-off point for understanding the modern history of B.C., of how we became who we are today," Coleman said.

"This celebrates a (Chinese) culture, but it also celebrates where we are now in Canada as a multicultural country."

Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations executive director Chu Yuanzheng was among the 200 Chinese community group officials who presented the $100,000 to Barkerville administrators in Vancouver this week. He noted many recent Chinese immigrants had no idea of the contribution of their ancestors in B.C. more than 130 years ago, and many saw an example to be followed.

"This is the least we can do to pay our respects to our ancestors," Chu said of the funds. "Everyone here agreed it's something we need to commemorate. Not all of us can donate a lot; some of us gave $100, others from $1,000 to $2,000. But we ended up getting what we got within a week of launching the fundraising drive.

"Canada is our new home," he continued. "It's something that many people, including our ancestors but also people of all different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, built with their bare hands. We benefit from the society they've created, and it's only natural we do our part - what we should be doing as citizens - in contributing to Canadian and B.C. community."

An exhibit series named "Who am I?" has been circulating in Southern China in recent years to educate Chinese citizens about their link to the town located in the remote B.C. wilderness.

Coleman said that the next step will be to improve local accommodation so visitors can spend more time in the region, and establish multilingual multimedia outreach programs to inform others of Barkerville's unique stories.

"It's a rediscovery process," Coleman said. "B.C. students and some people know Barkerville's story really well, but there are generations of people in Vancouver who don't realize they have first-generation stories here. Once they find out, people will want to learn more."