Wires in the Wilderness: The Story of the Yukon Telegraph

Can$19.95

This is the tale of how Canada’s high northern wilderness was brought into civilization’s fold through a frail network of wires laboriously strung between poles and trees for hundreds of desolate miles. It started in 1897, when gold was discovered in the Yukon and the government needed a faster way to communicate with its remote northern territory. The isolated residents, too, wanted a more reliable connection with the outside world. Thus was born the Yukon Telegraph.

The author takes readers from the line’s conception in 1899 to its abandonment in 1952 through to its status in the twenty-first century and its potential for future generations. At the heart of the book are the people, from the linemen who survived the extreme isolation, low pay, scant provisions and wild weather extremes to the colourful characters who hiked the trail in its early years.

Bill Miller has worked as a civil engineer, a history teacher, and an archivist. A New Yorker by birth, he and his wife Nancy now live in Atlin, B.C.

 

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