Barkerville is famous for its past, but a team of administrators and marketers is dedicated to its future. A former Prince George resident and all-local business leader has been newly named to that team.
Kiley Sales is a UNBC alumna who got a Master's degree in Prince George, then moved back to her hometown of Quesnel and continued to take university courses through UNBC's satellite campus there. She now takes the reins as Barkerville's manager of commerce, partnerships and giving.
"The staff at Barkerville Historic Town & Park is very excited to have Kiley join our team, and we are confident she will help us move forward into a prosperous future," said Ed Coleman, CEO of the living museum's organizational agency.
He cited her "extensive experience in education, business and trades" as reasons she led the field of highly qualified applicants for the position. Coleman said her duties will focus on "developing and stewarding relationships with a wide range of stakeholders, donors, and customers in B.C.'s Cariboo and Central Interior in order to advance the reach and support of the Provincial Heritage Property and National Historic Site of Canada."
Although she has only been at her Barkerville desk for a matter of weeks, she is already setting her sights on taking the tourist attraction and museum complex to new heights. This was the stated goal of the site's board and staff upon her arrival, she said, so the path forward was not obscure.
"This has already been an amazing, incredible experience so far. The leadership team here is unreal. The vision is clear, the board is diverse and highly capable, it's exciting to work with them," Sales said. "Our main goal is to take our heritage site and make it world class. We are striving to ensure we protect our invaluable infrastructure; we are responsible for the long-term preservation of our artifacts and documents and buildings; and the guests come for the interpretive features we all love: the actors on the street and that whole experience of being in a gold rush town, going back in time."
Barkerville is already a National Historic Site thrice over. It is so designated for the 1.6 km stretch of the original road between the gold rush towns of Barkerville and Richfield, for the gold fields themselves from Black Jack Canyon through Barkerville's townsite, and for the Chee Kung Tong building where the heavy population of Chinese participants in Cariboo history was headquartered.
In addition to other official designations for its historical values, Barkerville is also in the process of obtaining approval as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Sales said that goal is bright for the operating agency.
"Barkerville, in my mind, is the birth of modern British Columbia in many ways. And who doesn't love Barkerville if you've ever been here? It has such an important story to share," she said. It is a place in need of strong ongoing financial support to maintain its programming and resources, plus the pursuit of its future goals. Sales will be one of the main hands involved in obtaining that support from both government and the private sectors.
She considers this new job more of a personal duty, having grown up in the two cities closest to Barkerville. Were it not for UNBC "offering me worldly instructors in an all-local education setting," she would likely not have gotten the chance to ever be in such a position to pursue her professional dreams and benefit local culture at the same time.
