The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1905-03-31
Government Operator in Office
at Sitka, Alaska.
Three Years of Instruction Will
Prove Valuable.
Life in the Far Northwest Is
Not So Bad.

at the City hotei and also former tel
egrapher at the Great Western depot,
who is now serving in the United
States signal corps in Alaska, writes
man:
II have been having a great time
since / was at Mankato and have seen
a great deal of this country and have
been in some big places. l was at
San Francisco three times and always
had fine time. Frisco is a good place
After | enlisted, / was sent to Benicia,
California. We left the place after 1
had been there about three weeks. We
went away up in Washington on man
oeuvers and were up there for six
weeks, and then we went down in
southern California and were there two
months more on manoeuvers. There
were five thousand soldiers there all
in one camp. l did not do straight
duty, as most men did, but struck a
job i nthe quartermaster's department
and staid there until l requested to be
sent to the islands and tnen, when
saw they were not going to let me 60 to
the islands and heard that they were
going to send three men up here to
work on this cable, 1 requested permits
sion to be examined as a Morse oper-
ator, and | was one of the three men
chosen to be sent up here to learn this
cable operating, as good Morse man
can learn it great deal more easily
than anyone else.
$50 left Benicia on Nov 4, 1904, and
arrived here OH Nov 8. in charge of the
other two men that came with me. I
was one of three men, out of two hun
dred and fifty, picked to come here, so
l guess that was pretty good. 1 was
here only two weeks when | took my
first trick on the Juneau cable. I
learned the continental code and then
praeticed until l had it down pretty
well. 1t is very easy after a fellow
once learns it, but the hardest thing
to do is to learn to read the tape as
it comes off the machine, for it looks
like shorthand or rather worse when you
first see it. / never thought / could
read it but now j send it on the other
cables from the tape itself, without
writing it down. You see this is more
of relay office than anything else.
There are three separate cable lines in
here and this office can boast of having
more cables than any other one office in
existence We have the Seattle cable.
the Juneau cable, and the Valdez cable,
all three of which are government ca
bles and all operated by government
operators. There are eight of us here to
work the three cables, seven operators
and the man in charge. | will enclose
some of the tape as it comes from the
machines and send it in this letter
and you can see how it looks.
"Sitka is great town, the worst l
ever saw. There are ten Indians to each
white person and they are a fright.
The weather is fine here, but you think
OF course that we are freezing to death
just because we are in Alaska That is
where you are mistaken. OF course
there are parts of this country that are
cold, but here at Sitka there is the
finest kind of weather now and all the
year round, except that it rains a
little too much in winter. The grass is
green in the park, which is a natural
forest a few miles from our office, and
it is nice walk out there. There is
a river running through it and the park
leads right up the side of Mount Vesto-
via, which is covered with snow and ice
on top and which can be climbed only
in summer. | an intending to climb it
this summer. There are mountains all
around this place, except on the sea
side, and then you look across the sea
and on an island you see Mount Edge
comb, which was once an active vol
cano, and which was the maker of
Sitka's thousands of islands, for they
are nothing more than the lava and
rocks thrown up by the eruptions of
this volcano. 1t is now covered with
snow and the crater is very visible and
can be seen for long way. 1t is
thirty miles from here to the base of it
There are a great many Russians here
and there is a Russian church that is
a beauty inside.
Before my three years are up, l am
going to try to get up to Nome or st
MichaePs and learn the wireless bust.
ness, for we have two wireless stations