restored ghost town, east-central British Columbia, Canada, in the western foothills of the Cariboo Mountains, just west of Bowron Lake Provincial Park and 55 miles (88 km) east of Quesnel. Once a boomtown of nearly 10,000 inhabitants, which sprang up during the Cariboo gold rush, it was named after Billy Barker, a prospector who made an important strike locally at Williams Creek in 1862. It is now a provincial historical park (established 1959) and a tourist attraction. The 400-mile (650-kilometre) Cariboo Road from Yale at the head of navigation of the Fraser River to Barkerville was the major wagon route in the 1860s to the gold-mining region; it is now rebuilt and much extended.