The Telkwa Barbeque marked its 100th year this weekend.  People from across the northwest gathered for the Labour Day weekend to watch the demolition derby, baseball and of course get some BBQ food. 

What is now known as the Telkwa BBQ has evolved many times over the past century, the name, events, and people have all changed but one thing did stay same, Telkwa Museum Curator Doug Boersema ”Baseball has been constant right from the beginning this valley the people were crazy about baseball, so right from the beginning till this year they still had many baseball teams from all over.”

One new edition to the BBQ this year was the stage and some of the artists to first perform on it were Trooper, George Canyon and Aaron Pritchett.  The developers of the stage hope to see it being used for decades, Nathan Murdoch Soko Construction says, “It's exciting to know that my children and my children's children will be able to enjoy this long after I'm gone.”

The BBQ was known early on, as a place to get to see friends you may not usually get to see, Boersema explains, “Or they would mention that now's the time to meet with old friends that they haven't seen since the year before.. So it would combine or unite the friends from Prince George to Prince Rupert and all of the places in between.”

Demolition Derby Car Driver Marty Larson says, “It’s awesome! A lot of people getting together that I haven't seen in years... it's just going to be a great time.”

Bulkley Valley Kinsmen President Leroy Dekens is very happy that the BBQ was a success, “We've planned this, like you said, for five years and to see it come to fruition is just amazing, it’s great to see all the people out and everybody has go enjoyment in their hearts and they are having fun.”

The Telkwa BBQ Chairman Dennis O’Coffey explains that the BBQ has been such a success to due keeping the event up with the times, “It's a family event for so many years and just changing it up, you know when crowds get a little tired or something from a rodeo to a ball tournament times change and so do people’s ideas so we try to change with it.”