My wife Jo and I first heard about the Collins Overland Telegraph Line in 1970 while exploring in the Dawson City country in the Yukon. We are history buffs and travel in northern Canada every summer.

The Collins Line was planned to connect all the major capitals of the world. Western Union started in 1865 to build a line through Canada, Alaska, under the Bering Sea, thence across Siberia to Moscow and on to London. 

Not until 1979 did we get into an area where the Line had actually been built, in Hazelton, British Columbia. We knew that Western Union's effort to reach Moscow had ended in this area, aborted when the Atlantic cable was successfully laid in 1866. But not until 1982 did we meet anyone who knew anything about the Line. 

That summer we drove to Quesnel (Kwin-nell), British Columbia. Here we met Dwight Dodge. 

Dodge lives within one hundred yards of the old Line. He has spent most of his life in this country, having come here with his folks to operate a sawmill. His parents returned to Washington State, but Dwight stayed on. Over the years he has explored many miles of the Collins Line.

Dwight took us out, and, finally, I was standing on the Collins Overland Line. He showed me a piece of wire buried in a slide above the old road that followed the Line. He showed me how the old wire, the rolled wire, differed from the modern day drawn wire. It tends to fray when you twist it to break it. He also showed me some of the insulators in his collection, permitting me to hold a Chester and a Tillotson that he had found on the Line.

Dwight Dodge (left) and J Chester Gordon holding threadless Chester and Tillotson insulators. Dodge found these insulators on the old Collins Telegraph Line.

He told of his desire, of his dream, to see a hiking path developed along the Line from Quesnel to Hazelton, a 350 mile stretch. He told us that he and some of his friends had been meeting over Labor Day weekends to hew and hack brush from a few more miles each year. By 1982 they had cleared fifteen miles.

Jo and I returned to Quesnel in 1983. We had more time on this trip. One afternoon we went with Dwight to brush out more of the Line. It was a beautiful, sunny August afternoon, cool in the shade under the trees.

Dwight drove us twenty-two miles in his Dodge pickup to the end of his cleared trail. He kept watching the right hand side of the road until he spotted two fading ruts that were overgrown with brush and six to eight foot tall lodge pole pine. He smashed his way into the woods for 400 or so yards to where I could see his brushed out trail headed north toward "Roosha". I was ready for the experience that I had anticipated for a long time.

Looking north toward "Roosha" along a brushed out section of old Collins Line. There are places where the old trail, beaten down by untold numbers of hooves and feet, can still be traced.

Dwight brought along two machetes and his metal detector, Jo brought her camera, and I brought my bottle fork. I hacked away and packed the metal detector so that I could make an occasional foray into the brush, hoping to find something that Dwight had missed. I did not find even a piece of wire, except those pieces that Dwight had found, rolled up, and hung in trees beside the trail. 

The terrain in this area is relatively level. It has a minimum of underbrush beneath and the pines and scattered spruce. You can still find evidence of the cuts made made where the old road slanted down the hillsides into washes and ravines. This road was carved out by the Collins people in 1866. They used trains of pack animals to haul their supplies along as the line construction progressed. This road or trail thereafter became a thoroughfare for Indians, moose and white men. 

Dwight would like to see his trail brushing project move ahead at a faster pace. He would like to find people in the few and scattered communities in that area who would volunteer to help. There are many miles of the Line that are now under cultivation. But there still are miles of Line in open country. The rebuilt Telegraph Road is still traveled between Quesnel and Fraser Lake. It is gravel.

Most of the Line has been harvested. Much of the land has been fenced. The wire was the first to go. Indians used it for suspension bridges, hunters and trappers would snip off stretches according to their needs, and then the farmers came. Hay wire was a priceless item to these early pioneers.

There are still Chesters and Tillotsons along the Line buried beneath leaves and dirt or in swamps. Most insulators were picked up years ago, or served for target practice. Dwight and his friends keep pressing on with his project. I know that he would welcome assistance from anyone who would be prepared to get out in the woods for half a day or so. Jo and I hope to return again, if not this summer, then in 1985.