QUESNEL FORKS 1859
If you like GOLD!
The Rush is ON!
Plan to Visit The Forks Summer of 2009. This is their 150 anniversary.
Working on more Utube Videos for this town so check back later...
An Interview with Robin Hood 
Project Director for the restoration of Quesnel Forks.
In 1859 just one year after the Frazer River Gold Rush, Hardy souls had braved their way up to Cariboo.. Quesnel Forks came to be first, just to winter together and then as a supply center for the miners in the vast area. GOLD is all around you here at the Forks. Big strikes in the early years, but also in the 1930’s have helped to keep the forks on the map!
Even in the 1930's lots survived of Quesnel Forks.
This town best represents our earliest boom towns. To busy get'in GOLD to paint! Subsequently these structures started to decay the day after they were built! As if time alone was not enough to work against the Forks a recent slide on the other side of the river has redirected the rivers flow now cutting away the old town site. Please believe me the town is very well worth a visit.
The road out from 150 mile house is paved but for a few kilometers. A fine B.C. Forest service campsite is within an easy walk to the old town site. You can proceed to Barkerville on a very well maintained gravel road suitable even in your family car.
The old Chinese Incense house, or whats left.
Many of the graves are unmarked.
Quesnel Forks became predominantly a Chinese mining town when the western miners realized that the best ground was worked out and wages were what they could expect.
So they sold their claims to the Chinese. These Chinese were very good and through miners. The work was dangerous and the hardships many. Some of these Chinese miners died and were buried in the Cemetery. They do not rest there today. The poor soles were later dis interned by the Chinese benevolent society in Victoria and Vancouver. Their bones were sent back to China. Evident at the graveyard, is the incense house...
Thanks to Mr. Hood & his work crew from Likley for the shuring up and complete on going restoration of Quesnel Forks.
When you visit a gold rush town, the energy is still there even after 150 years. Gold fever can take hold of you today as much as in any other time! Unlike towns where miners would bring in their families and be working for wages. The gold rush towns did not have schools, churches or town halls what they did have were Hotel bars and brothels and the chance to strike a fortune...
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