Bill Brown of Barkerville

April 1925 marked the highlight of a lifetime for 86-year-old prospector Bill Brown of Barkerville.

On his first visit ‘outside’ in 53 years, he saw his first moving picture show in Quesnel. “The actors and actresses were there on the stage,” Bill marvelled, “just as if they were there in real life, only they were not there at all.”

The guest of longtime Cariboo resident and historian Louis Labourdais, Brown said that he hadn’t realized such a thing was possible.

For more than half a century he’d been all but out of touch with the world beyond Barkerville and vicinity. Ever since his arrival in the spring of 1872, the six-foot tall, white-haired miner had picked and panned his living from the Cariboo’s once-rich gold creeks.

There have been 10s of 1000s of men like him in B.C.’s history.

Pioneers who, unknown to us today, helped to lay the foundation for those who followed. We’ll never know their stories, or even their names. But, every so often, one of them—in this case prospector Bill Brown—escapes obscurity if only momentariy from old newspaper clippings. 

Bill Brown’s story in next week’s BC Chronicles. 

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PHOTO: A group of “oldtimers” pose for posterity in Barkerville in 1907. Was Bill Brown one of them? —BC Archives