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Continental Dash: The Russian-American Telegraph
MR. RIPLEY WOULDN'T HAVE BEILEVED it. In the 1860's an attempt was made to construct a telegraph line from Seattle to Siberia. Crews raced north through B.C. to connect Europe with North America before competitors successfully laid a cable across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.
This unlikely chapter of B.C. history is the subject of Rosemary Neering's Continental Dash: The Russian-American Telegraph (Horsdal & Schubart $22.95), one of over 5O new non-fiction books from or about B.C. this spring.
Hundreds of miles of the "Collins Overland Telegraphy" were constructed in B.C. during a period when the population of New Westminster was 200. Towns such as Telegraph Creek, Burns Lake, Decker Lake and Bulkley River all derive their names from the system which was in continuous operation through central B.C. for 113 years.
[Summer/BCBW 1989]
This unlikely chapter of B.C. history is the subject of Rosemary Neering's Continental Dash: The Russian-American Telegraph (Horsdal & Schubart $22.95), one of over 5O new non-fiction books from or about B.C. this spring.
Hundreds of miles of the "Collins Overland Telegraphy" were constructed in B.C. during a period when the population of New Westminster was 200. Towns such as Telegraph Creek, Burns Lake, Decker Lake and Bulkley River all derive their names from the system which was in continuous operation through central B.C. for 113 years.
[Summer/BCBW 1989]
Submitted on February 5, 2004 in By David.
