It's mid August, and the sky is pink with forest fire smoke as West Quesnel, on the other side of the Fraser, waits under evacuation alert. Opened in 1929, this footbridge once accommodated horses, wagons, and the occasional car, and served the area until 1970. As we trotted across the wooden planking, making the expected noise, I kept expecting a voice to cry out from below, "Who is walking across my bridge?" like in The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Across the street stands the Hudson's Bay store, opened in 1867. Nearby lies an old boiler from the first steamboat to serve the Upper Fraser, the S.S. Enterprise. Another
Heritage Corner artifact is a Cornish water wheel used in the Gold Rush. The Collins cairn marks the successful overland telegraphic connection of Quesnel with New Westminster in 1865. The telegraph arrived in Barkerville three years, but it took until 1907 to reach the Yukon.
