Most Remarkable of Telegraph Lines

That from Ashcroft to the Yukon has never Ending Romance.

What the Line Means to Prospectors and Pioneers.

From Ashcroft on the old Cariboo road in British Columbia, zigzagging its way northward for 2500 miles runs the Yukon telegraph, the most remarkable telegraph line in America. Its romance is never ending. It was born in the gilded days of the Klondike rush in 1890. Its first messages were of “lucky strikes” that had turned penniless miners into millionaires, and of gold seekers who had perished by the trail.

The story of the building is an epic of adventure, a saga of man’s conquest over the silent places and silent forces of the stilly north. Even today, when the glory of the old-time Dawson has departed, and the wickedest camp on earth has become respectable and industrious, the Yukon telegraph has not backslid to the extent of earning its own living. Our Ethiopian friend, Splotas, may still hover round the old camp, strumming his banjo and recalling its halycon [sic] days. But the Yukon telegraph, in its most recent year of business, can still boast a prodigal life. Last year when it carried nearly one hundred thousand messages each way, to and fro, in the frozen north, like one of the old-time gamblers it can hold its head aloft and announce that it was “out” $80,000.

Of course the truer and kinder way to state the fact would be to say that the line gave to the public of Canada during the year service to the extent, of $80,000 more than the aforesaid public paid for. “The best $80,000 that the government spent last year,” said an old northern traveler to me as he looked at the financial statement of the line.

In Touch with Civilization.

“It means a lot to the prospectors and the pioneers to be able to go into the wilds for a thousand miles and not lose touch with civilization, “I agreed. “I was not thinking of it as philanthropy for the people in the north. I was thinking of it as a cold business proposition for the government,” rejoined my friend in correction. “Have you noticed,” he went on, “that the valleys are filling up in the north—the Bulkley and the Kispiox and the Naas —are those through which the telegraph passes. The telegraph opened the land to the first landseekers; it is still helping to bring the settler on to the land. Where there is no line of railway to follow, the line of settlement is the government telegraph.”

There is truth in the argument. The Yukon telegraph is making possible much of the commercial development of northern British Columbia. For the thousands of white men in the scattered communities from Prince Rupert clear through to the Arctic circle, the government telegraph forms the link, and the only link, with the great news events of the world. On the occasion of the great International event which occurred at Reno on July 4, (a boxing match) two years ago, when every Anglo-Saxon between the forty-ninth parallel and the North Pole, was anxiously awaiting the result, the fateful message, “Johnston wins in fourteenth,” was received in Prince Rupert within three minutes of the catastrophe. The same flash would be received in Dawson a minute later, the wires having been kept clear for the momentous news.

The visitor who sees the line for the first time is liable to make merry over it. Strung on low straggling poles, with the wire sagging down within reach of the hand in places, the line seems to be built more for the domestic “wash” than for conveying important messages. After following the line in its tortuous course up the north bank of the Skeena river for a couple of hundred miles the same cabinet minister became filled with, admiration for the line and its intrepid builders. A conventional line strung taut on tall, straight poles would be immensely more difficult to maintain in repair. The low, loose wire strung on low poles, on the limbs of trees and over the faces of rocky cliffs is quite as effective as a more ornamental line, and a hundredfold easier to keep in working order.

Operators Lead Lonely lives.

At intervals of from seventeen to fifty miles along the whole length of the line are the cabins of the operators. Each operator is an expert lineman and responsible for keeping his own section of the line in repair. The man who has fifty miles of line to look after is on flat land, and has a horse to ride out on along the trail to locate breaks in the line. The men with shorter distances to protect are in the mountains, where in winter hazardous journeys on snowshoes must be made. In some of the stations it is practically winter all the year round. Twice a year food and supplies are packed in, and the operator gets relief from the terrible silence of his lonely life. For the rest of the time the operator is dependent on breaks in the line for his chief means of providing him with company. When a wire goes “dead” the operator on either side of the break takes his tools on his back and goes out in search of the break.

“A break in the line.” it sounds a small and simple matter, but there is no break without its own story of hardships overcome. “We had frequent breaks in the line, owing to fires on the Yukon river and to storms between Atlin and Dawson, but repairs were always quickly effected and the line was kept open all winter,” stated Superintendent J. P. Phelan in his last published report to the government. The writer had occasion during the period covered by the report to see one of the reasons for a break in the line. it was an avalanche of ice and snow that had swept great rocks and giant trees like matchwood before it in its thunderous passage down the mountain side. The “slide” measured 1200 feet across and 80 feet deep. No snow sheds could stand before such an avalanche. it could have buried out of sight a good-sized town. I was not privileged to see the report made on it, but I imagine it was dealt with in some such perfunctory way as this:

“Break in line at mile 44; caused by slide at 11:30. Proceeded to spot and got repair made by nightfall.” At any rate, the affair was considered of so little importance that the superintendent never mentioned it at all in his report to the government.

A Characteristic Report.

Here is a characteristic report as it was handed in by one lineman. It is a hard-boiled account of a day’s work that started at 7:30 a. m. one day and lasted until 5 a. m. on the following day:

“May 5, 1912, 7:30 a. m.; started on line north from Maple Bay; removed two trees; replaced wire on four poles two miles north of here; put up quarter mile of wire at camp at Swamp Point; replaced two blocks, two glasses, near White Point; replaced wire on five poles, used five blocks, three glasses; removed three trees: fell off bluff here into deep water; lost tool bag with spurs, come alongs, pliers, connectors, hardware and safety belt; had hard time keeping afloat until Daigleish [sic] picked me up, account wearing hip rubbers and raincoat; removed one tree; replaced wire on two poles three miles north of Tad’s Cove. Home 2 am, 6th.”

The exact chronological order observed by the narrator in telling of how he narrowly escaped death in the water and then went on to remove two trees, the incident not even dignified by a whole sentence to itself defies all art. The incident was too obviously a part of the day’s work.

Yearly Extensions

Every year sees the government line extending its branches, always a little ahead of the settlement and development of the districts. The main line connects at Ashcroft with the Canadian Pacific Railway system. At its northern extremity it connects with the United States signal service telegraph system at the Alaskan boundary. The latter system is, of course, controlled by the United States department of war. Branch lines are run from principal points on the route into the settled districts. Lillooet, Barkerville, Quesnelle Forks and the mining camps along Cadwalder creek are thus served. The longest branch is that which runs from Hazelton, an old Hudson’s Bay trading station, down the Skeena river to Prince Rupert. It measures 200 miles. From Kitsumkalum, halfway down the river, another branch was built last year, running a distance of 175 miles to Stewart. In its passage through the Naas valley and river, the line links up the mining camps on Observatory inlet and the Portland canal. This year a branch, from 150-mile house on the Cariboo road, is to be built through the Chilcotin country to Bella Coola, situated on the coast about halfway between Vancouver and Prince Rupert.

Near Early Proposed Route.

A strange coincidence connected with the route of the main line is that, without intention, it almost duplicates the route laid out by the Western Union Telegraph Company (Collins Overland Telegraph) half a century ago, when that company, after the breaking of the Atlantic cable in 1859, decided to lay a land line through Alaska and Siberia to Europe. Over $3,000,000 had been spent on the line when the company recalled their plans for the land line, having in the meantime picked up the Atlantic cable again. Some of the engineers and linemen were then so far inland that it was nine months from the time the order was sent before it could be delivered to them. Telegraph creek and Lake Le Barge, the latter named after one of their engineers, still preserve in their names the memory of the Western Union project. For many miles of the route portions of the old line built by the engineers of the Western Union are now being worked as a second wire by the government operators.

Such is the work of the Yukon telegraph and of the men who operate it. Leading lives of sturdy adventure and hardships. In the wilds, the achievement of their ambition is embalmed in the customary phrase that finds it way into each annual report—”That the line was kept open all winter.” The Spirit in which the men of the Yukon telegraph “do their work and hold their peace and have no fear to die” invests with a halo of romance the daily operation of what may without exaggeration be styled the most romantic telegraph line in America.