NEGATIVE WAYS BABY

“You just can’t live that negative way.
You know what I mean. Make way for the positive day. Cause it’s a new day…”

Bob Marley

The past couple of weeks my family has been living like nomads roaming free around the countryside. We planned our camping trip months ago and we decided to take the trailer up to the interior of British Columbia as the children and I have never been there. To start the trip we decided to drive to Barkerville, BC. It was a ten-hour drive to arrive to a place that is off the beaten path. We arrived after dark and the only address for the campsite listed on the website was “this campsite is 3 kilometres east of Barkerville.” I knew this was remote but I had no idea how remote until we got there and drove up and down the road leading to Barkerville looking for some kind of sign that led us to the campground. We finally found a service road and tucked in behind was a sign leading us to our campground. I’m use to staying in packed campgrounds so I was unprepared to be one of three campers in a fairly large campground. Upon booking I knew that the ammenities were few and far between. There was water but no hook-up and no electricity. There were washrooms with a shower but upon inspection, it was $1.00 a minute to shower and the water was luke warm at best. I wasn’t worried about the no electricity or water hookup, but a cold shower, no thank-you.

The next day we headed to Barkerville and we were filled with the history of the gold rush in the area and I must say it was very interesting. I can’t imagine living somewhere so remote and trying to establish myself way back when there was no electricity and plumbing. I didn’t realize that Barkeville and the Gold Rush made BC what it is today. When Billy Barker struck gold, there was a movement to annex BC to the USA. When the Queen of England found out about Billy Barker’s riches in gold she promptly put a stop to the movement because she wanted a piece of the pie! At one time it was thought that Vancouver would not become an established city because of the success of Barkerville. Hard to believe but Barkerville housed fifteen thousand people in its heyday. As much as I enjoyed the couple of days in Barkerville I couldn’t help but notice and feel an enormous amount of negative energy from the land. Every night when I went to sleep my head was filled with negativity making it difficult for me to sleep and during the day I had an uneasy feeling. I told my husband and he said “there was a lot of greed, evil, sickness and death in this land, maybe you’re just feeling the negative residue that’s been left behind.” I’m not sure, but I was definetely feeling something. A few minutes later after telling my husband about the negativity, I heard him humming to himself outside of the trailer. The song went something like this, “you gotta lose those negative ways baby.” I’m surprised I heard him but the area was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

We stayed in Barkerville for three nights and I didn’t take a shower as the second day it was cold and raining and the thought of taking my clothes off in a cold concrete room only to jump into a cold shower and pay $1.00 for a minute didn’t sit well with me. Instead I filled a pot with water and boiled the water on my gas stove and sponged bathed in the bathroom in the trailer. Good thing I was born in this era, I wouldn’t have survived in the gold rush days! We left Barkerville and drove east to Kamloops and then on to Fort Steele about a twelve hour drive through the mountains. It was a beautiful drive and only after driving for two hours did I feel the negativity leave my body. I’m not sure what I was feeling but something didn’t feel right.

I’ll be sure to post pictures as I can’t load pictures with the computer I’m using. We are still in Nomad mode cruising the countryside. I’ll  update  with more stories and pictures in the next little while. I’m grateful to say that so far during the rest of my trip, I have only felt peace and tranquility in this beautiful Rocky Mountain countryside and I haven’t heard my husband singing “you gotta lose those negative ways baby” since we left Barkerville.