This article was sent to us by Jack Hayes, Pakenham, Ontario, and appeared in HORIZON CANADA, The New Popular History of Canada magazine. It is being reprinted with the permission of the Center for the Study of Teaching Canada/Le Centre d'Etudes en Enseignement du Canada, Education Tower, 1070 Laval University, Ste-Foy, Quebec G1K 7P4

Prospectors, trappers and other travelers in the wilderness of north-western British Columbia still occasionally encounter the scattered remains of one of the 19th century's most ambitious schemes. Rusty wire, broken insulators and overgrown trails are the relics of a project that at one time captured the imagination of much of the western world. 

The Collins' Overland Telegraph Project was as much a part of the technological history of the mid-19th century as the silicon chip is of the later 20th. Born of the desire to conquer distance and speed communication, the project used the high technology then available -- the electric telegraph. 

The dream of linking cities and continents with strands of telegraph wire was a passion of many of the leading engineers and businessmen of the day. Cyrus Field, the American financier who was responsible for the laying of the first successful Atlantic cable in July 1866, is well known. Perry McDonough Collins, an entrepreneur and visionary of equal stature, has slipped into relative obscurity. So, for that matter, has the contribution that Collins and his work made to the early development of British Columbia.

Samuel Morse's invention of the electric telegraph in 1835 marked the start of a communications revolution. After the first short line was completed in 1844 between Washington and Baltimore, most of the settled parts of North America were soon linked by telegraph wire.

In Europe there was a similar and rapid expansion. Morse Code, by the early 1860s, had become an international language, and the telegraph had transformed conceptions of time and distance. Newspapers now carried despatches 'by wire," bringing immediacy to events that formerly were known days or weeks after the fact. 

By the early 1860s, the one remaining challenge to the telegraph engineers was the establishment of an intercontinental link. Americans and Europeans, facing each other across the broad but familiar Atlantic, thought first of a submarine cable. Since the mid-1850s, insulated submarine cables had linked England and the Continent, but the Atlantic cable project seemed doomed to failure. Attempts had been made since 1857 to lay a cable, but had failed because of broken wire and the inability to transmit over long distances on an underwater cable. Many were convinced that an Atlantic cable would never work. 

Perry Collins proposed an alternative. Why not go west to Europe rather than east? North America and the Eurasian land mass were separated by only the narrow waters of Bering Strait if one looked to the northwest. To be sure, there were also thousands of kilometres of virtually unexplored wilderness to be crossed, but this, though formidable, was not insurmountable in either human or technological terms.

Scouting the Terrain

It was in many ways natural for Collins to think in terms of a western route linking the continents. Born in New York in 1813, his early adult years were spent as a law clerk in New Orleans and New York City. Like thousands of other young men, he had followed the gold rush to California in 1849. More suited to business than mining, he was soon a partner in a gold brokerage firm and increasingly aware of the commercial possibilities of the West. 

Terminal station. Before it was abandoned, the Collins line stretched from New Westminster (shown here) to the Skeena Valley in northern B.C.

By the mid-1850s, Collins, together w ith entrepreneurs like Milton Latham and William Gwin, both later to become senators from California and influential allies, had become convinced that the North Pacific and Asiatic Russia were a rich potential field for American commerce. Collins had himself appointed American "Commercial Agent for the Amur River" and visited this frontier region of the Russian Empire, becoming increasingly convinced of the commercial possibilities for the United States. His book, Voyage Down the Amoor (1860) described in glowing terms the opportunities for American trade and technology. 

Man in charge. Edmund Conway (seated centre), a veteran of the American Civil War, was placed in charge of construction through British Columbia. He traveled on foot up the Fraser Valley from New Westminster to Hope laying out the route of the southern section. Partly at Conway's urging, the government agreed to build a wagon road from the coast to link up with the already completed Cariboo Road in the interior. The telegraph could hove a right-of-way along the road and would only have to bear the expense of erecting poles and stringing wire.

The commercial potential of a telegraph linking Europe and America via Bering Strait was also obvious to Collins. Whoever controlled the huge volume of telegraph communications between the continents was assured healthy profits. If such a line could also open Russian America, British Columbia and Asia to American commerce. so much the better.

His first thought was to promote a line from Montreal, across Hudson Bay Co. territory and through Russian America to Bering Strait. This would be the shortest route and would avoid the mountainous, difficult terrain of British Columbia. In Montreal, Collins formed the Transmundane Telegraph Co., and began to look for support for the scheme.

Despite the personal enthusiasm of backers such as Sir George Simpson, overseas governor of the HBC, he had little success. Neither the Canadian nor the British governments were interested in providing subsidies. and the HBC would not contemplate the large capital outlay required. By 1860, Collins was looking to the United States for support, convinced that the Canadians would not move fast enough to seize the opportunity.

His timing was good. In 1859 and 1860 the Western Union Telegraph Co., led by its dynamic president, Hiram Sibley, was in the process of absorbing smaller rivals and establishing a telegraph monopoly in the United States. It was also lobbying Congress for support in building a transcontinental line to California, and saw Collins' scheme as a natural complement to its own.

'Living and Thinking Wire' 

When the Western Union's wire reached San Francisco in late 1861, Collins' plans were several thousand kilometres closer to realization. The Civil War, which had shattered the union, made both the urgency of an intercontinental link, and the difficulty of negotiating with the British and Russians, more apparent. Collins spent the next two and a half years negotiating with British, Russian and American officials to secure the necessary rights of way and support. By late 1864, his efforts succeeded, and the Collins' Overland Telegraph Project was born.

Financed by a special issue of Western Union shares, the project was of awesome proportions. A line was to be built from San Francisco to Bering Strait where a short submarine cable would be needed. From there, the line would be built south to the Russian Pacific port of Nikolaevsk where it would connect with Russian lines. 

Collins received $100,000 for his negotiations and substantial amounts of stock in the new company. As he told the Travellers' Club of New York in December 1865, the future looked good for Western Union: ''Like the British Empire upon which the sun never sets, our messages... will never cease; and those who can look sharply into figures may be able to estimate the earnings of the Overland line." As Senator Latham of California, an ardent supporter of Collins, put it: "We hold the ball of the earth in our band, and wind upon it a network of living and thinking wire.'' 

The Collins line. Construction was divided into three sections: B.C., Russian America (Alaska) and Siberia. Work in Siberia hardly got going before the project shut down.

The organization and operation of such a gigantic scheme required the experience of military men. In late 1864, there was no shortage of available talent. Col. Charles S. Bulkley, a veteran of the Military Telegraph Corps, was the man chosen to head the project. Quickly, he recruited a staff which included many who would later achieve considerable renown. Edmund Conway, another Telegraph Corps veteran, was in charge of the British Columbia work. Others, such as George Kennan. Franklin Pope and W. H. Dall would make valuable contributions to the American knowledge of Alaska and Asiatic Russia.

Charles Bulkley. He was in charge of the entire project.

Cariboo Road. Wherever possible, the Collins line followed the Cariboo Road, constructed in the early 1860s to give access to the goldfields of the interior.

Stringing the line. Two more views of telegraph construction by J.C. White. Bottom, lines crossing a lake to one of the stations which were built every 40 km. Top, a pack train bringing in wire and other supplies. Whenever possible, the company hired Indian and Chinese labourers who accepted the low wage of $15 a month. White colonists resented this policy, but the company persisted. Conditions were hard and the rough colony was not to everyone's liking. Edmund Conway complained that "one encounters nothing but heavy timber, rum mills, broken miners, English aristocrats, loafers and swindlers... Banishment in Siberia "is a paradise in comparison to this place."

Road to Russia. Another view of the Cariboo Road, which the telegraph line followed up the Fraser Canyon.

The project was organized along military lines, and even had a naval branch to transport supplies to the widely scattered survey and building parties. Three construction divisions were established -- Siberia, Russian America and British Columbia -- each with their own commanders, surveyors and labourers.

Quick Work 

Except in southern British Columbia, the line would pass through territory seen only by the Native people and a few fur traders. The natural obstacles were of mammoth proportions. Despite this, the project made surprisingly rapid progress.

By March 1865, New Westminster was connected and work was begun on stretching wire up the Fraser Valley and through the difficult terrain of the Fraser canyon. That year, the line was completed to a point about 30 km north of Quesnel, when winter brought work to a halt.

Surveyors, axemen, Chinese labourers and engineers cut a line 10-12 metres wide, along which poles were placed every 20 metres. At regular intervals, cabins were built for supplies and telegraph equipment. In both Siberia and Russian-America, the survey had proceeded quickly in 1865. When work began early the following spring, the experienced crews made rapid progress. By July 1866, the entire line had been surveyed, and the necessary supplies put in place.

In B.C., the line had been completed to the Skeena Valley, and crews were pushing north quickly. Even Victoria saw a small measure of its insularity ended as a line reached the island city in April. It seemed as if the project could not be stopped, so rapid was the progress.

Then, to spoil the mid-summer euphoria, came potentially bad news. An Atlantic cable had been laid, and was working.

Taking a nervous 'wait-and-see' attitude, the company halted construction work in B.C., but in the more remote regions of Russian-America and Siberia. work continued. Atlantic cables had failed before, surely this one would too. By early 1867 though, the cable was still working. The end had come for the Overland Telegraph Project.

Not a Total Loss 

Work crews hung black crepe on telegraph poles in mourning. Some equipment was loaded on company ships and returned to San Francisco, but much more equipment was simply abandoned or sold to the Natives. For years afterward, travelers reported Alaskan Natives awkwardly drinking tea out of green glass insulators.

Although much was lost with the collapse of the project, much also had been gained, especially in B.C. External communications had been vastly improved and a connection made with the outside world. It would be another 20 years before an all-Canadian telegraph line reached the Pacific. British Columbia would get news of Canadian Confederation via an American wire service. 

Both Western Union and Collins continued to prosper despite this setback. Collins lived comfortably in San Francisco and New York until his death in 1900 at the age of 87. When, in 1867, American Secretary of State William Seward arranged the purchase of Alaska, he was grateful to the scientists of the telegraph project for their enthusiastic endorsement of his bargain with the Russians. Thanks to the Collins project, they were part of a tiny group of Americans who were fully aware of the richness of Alaska's resources.

Yukon telegraph. This line was the heir of the Collins project. The Yukon line was constructed in 1899 across the Yukon territory, and two years later it was extended south to Quesnel in central British Columbia. Construction techniques did not differ much from those employed on the Collins line. Wire was strung on poles cut for the purpose, or on living trees topped and trimmed where they grew. The wire was carried up the pole and tied to a glass or porcelain insulator. Insulators prevented loss of electrical current if wire touched the pole.