If you’re not spending Easter on the coastland, you’re headed for one of two places – the Lethem Rodeo or the Bartica Regatta. Unofficially known for decades as a place of fun and frolic, Bartica attracts thousands to its shores, avenues and waters every Easter weekend for the grand Bartica Regatta. Those who have been there know of the powerboating spills, thrills and intense battles; they know of the daring open-water swimming competitions, the hospitable, fun-loving and easy going people, the enthralling pageantry and parties aplenty of every variety. Bartica, every Easter, is ‘fun town.’

Being the ‘Gateway to the Interior’ it has been the place where those who strike it big in the backdam would arrive to celebrate with lustre and extravagance, either while in transit to the coast or before heading back to camp.

Historically and understandably, Barticians are more attuned to the world market price for gold than they are to the weather. Gold is what is synonymous with the town.

In 1970 gold fetched a modest US$221 per ounce but ten years later this skyrocketed to an all-time high of US$2032 per ounce. Things went south for a few decades until it hit a 30-year low of US$355 per ounce in 2001. After the turn of the century, gold prices started on a steady climb back to the US$2000 mark and business and interest in Bartica began to respond and boom. New hotels, entertainment spots and businesses were erected and they thrived.

At the height of this Bartica resurgence, in 2008, a pall of darkness and fear enveloped the hinterland community when crazed men ran amuck in the streets causing bloodshed and dread. This interrupted lives and families but did not interrupt the upward climb of gold prices. The darkness remained for some time but business continued to flow.

Then things slowed considerably in 2013 when the price of gold plummeted from US$1945 to US$1230, falling by over US$700 in less than 24 months. That downward trend continued until the last quarter of last year, when in November the world market price for gold sat at US$1080 per ounce. It has been on the upswing since and is now hovering just below the US$1250 mark.

While gold prices are showing signs of a revival, there is a different kind of boom which is also happening in Bartica. The town has become the epicentre for Guyana’s green development thrust. President David Granger, pole-vaulted Bartica into the national spotlight when he identified it to be Guyana’s first green town. The initial signal came when an aberration and injustice, which he noted, was allowed to persist from 1887 (when an Ordinance was passed to make Bartica a town) until 2016, was remedied and Bartica was belatedly declared a town.

Today, Bartica is a hive of activity. The Green Bartica Development Plan was proposed and presented. The Maritime Administration Department (MARAD) has opened a new office in the town. The Guyana Water Inc. (GWI), the Ministry of Public Infrastructure, the Department of Sport, the Department of Culture, the Ministry of Communities and the Ministry of Public Health among others all have Bartica high up on their priority lists.

Radio Bartica 95.1FM, a flagship project of the Office of the Prime Minister, and part of the Community Broadcasting Project, will be live on air by May this year.
A mega solar farm is planned for Bartica to finally alleviate the issues it has faced with regard to power generation.

Speak to Region Seven, Regional Chairman, Gordon Bradford, or Bartica Mayor, Gifford Marshall, and they are energised that the town is on its way back. They exude enthusiasm and optimism that no longer will Bartica be denied its fair share and just due. The attention and constant inflow of government officers, technical experts and other officials may cause the long denied people of Bartica and their elected officials to blush. But it forms part of Bartica recapturing its stride and being on the rebound. Pioneering town, green town, model town, fun town – all year round.