The
Top of the World Highway eventually connected to the Taylor Highway and
brought us to Tok, “Gateway to Alaska”. It’s called this because
its main streets are the crossroads for the only two highways that traverse
the interior of Alaska. The area surrounding the highway showed familiar
signs of human habitation. Telephone poles! With glass on top!
I couldn’t tell what they where but I knew, at least, that they where insulators.
Working, from the looks of it. I couldn’t believe that this place
was still using two pair wire for subscriber service! They had to
be working lines!
In different odd lengths
of poles and wire you could occasionally see an added piece of wood at
the top. A brown porcelain insulator and a heavy cable would cap
this. At times these arrangements diverged and only the poles with crossarms
and glass remained on that side of the highway.
We continued northwest
toward Delta Junction and eagerly scanned the lines to see where they lead
and if anything new developed. At one point the crossarms where hanging
down but the wires where still connected!
Eventually we came
to a length where it was obvious the lines where being worked on.
Some of the crossarms where loose and further on the crossarms where only
hanging by one bolt so that they hung at an awkward angle and no longer
had any wires attached. Humm…
I couldn’t see what
they were with the zoom lens as we passed, and it was unsafe to stop on
the side of the road. Seems like there was more cars on the road
than there should be. Finally we came to a section where a pole was
near a pull-off. We stopped and walked back into the vegetation to
peer up there. I had to know what those where! Looking
up, Steve says, ”they’re too high. To get up there you’d need a ladder
as high as the one on the camper…”
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