Barkerville will be celebrating the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival on September 9th
August 28, 2023 (Barkerville, BC) – Barkerville Historic Town & Park is pleased to announce that its
23rd annual Mid-Autumn Moon Festival is happening on Saturday, September 9th. The festival
honours the Cariboo region’s Chinese community and includes festival-themed activities throughout
the day, evening entertainment at the Theatre Royal, and a lantern parade at dusk.
Mid-Autumn Moon festivals have been held in Asia for more than 1,000 years and they celebrate the
abundance of the harvest with traditional music, martial art displays, lantern building, and the tasting
of bean curd or lotus seed mooncakes shaped to reflect the harvest moon. According to ancient
Chinese astrology, the moon is at its roundest in the middle of the autumn season. Since the round
shape of the full moon symbolizes family reunion and togetherness in Chinese culture, one of the
preeminent festivals in the Chinese calendar is the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival.
“This season’s festival is especially important as 2023 marks 100 years since the Canadian
government introduced the Chinese Immigration Act, commonly known as the Chinese Exclusion
Act,” says Dr. Ying Ying Chen, the coordinator for Barkerville’s Historic Chinatown programs. “From
1923 to 1947, Chinese immigration into Canada became illegal.”
In May of this year, Parks Canada Minister Steven Guilbeault announced the designation of the
exclusion of Chinese Immigrants as an event of national historic significance. The Act was part of a
long legacy of discrimination against Chinese people in Canada, including here in Barkerville. Directly
following the Head Tax, which forced Chinese immigrants to pay as much as $500 to enter Canada, the
Act intentionally disrupted family life by preventing Chinese men from visiting home or bringing
family here.
“Without descendants in Barkerville, the development of a flourishing Chinese community was
hampered,” adds Dr. Chen. “As mining slowed down in Barkerville, the Chinese community dispersed,
and in 1934, only sixty Chinese people remained.”
In remembrance of this history, Barkerville will be celebrating its Mid-Autumn Moon Festival a little
earlier than most to share this special day with the historic town’s summertime guests. This year’s
event will feature lion and dragon dances, lantern making workshops, trivia contests, mooncake
tasting, celebratory banquets at the Lung Duck Tong restaurant, and a spectacular parade of
illuminated paper lanterns that will fill the night with equal parts revelry and reverence for one of BC’s
oldest and largest ethnic communities.
For more information about Barkerville’s 2023 Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, please visit
www.barkerville.ca, or phone 1-888-994-3332. For information or reservations for the Lung Duck
Tong Mid-Autumn Banquet on September 9th, please call (250) 994-3458