Photo courtesy Barkerville Historic Town

Barkerville, B.C. – Barkerville opens for the season today and for the sixth consecutive year May is ‘Pay what you Can” month.

It will be open from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. and James Douglass, manager of visitor experience and public relations, can’t wait for the season to start.

“We’re particularly excited this year because it’s Canada 150 and there are so many national events that are happening and we’re really looking forward to it,” he says. “And of course it will be admission by donation until May 31 – you can pay as much or as little as you like.”

He says the early season promotion has been a real hit since it was first launched.

“It works out very, very well. I guess it’s a little bit of an extra incentive for our local and regional visitors and we wanted to be able to give back a little bit and for people to see Barkerville when they normally wouldn’t. It’s also really helped us and the economy of Wells. I would say we’ve seen a 300 per cent increase in our regular visitation since it started.”

Douglass says the highlight of this coming long weekend will be their annual Victoria Day Royal Tea on Monday in the Wake-Up Jake restaurant.

To commemorate Canada’s 150^th birthday he says Barkerville has lots more in store tin the coming months including the unveiling of a Group of Seven Painting next month and a Dominion Day Celebration July 1.