At Tum Tum or Tranquille, Canoe or Kamloops, Squilax or Stoney Creek, just anywhere along the Company's 506 miles of track between Field and Spence's Bridge, Revelstoke and Arrowhead, and Sicamous to Kelowna (Vernon), the name of Art DeWitt is synonymous with Canadian Pacific communications to people inside and outside Company service.

Mr. DeWitt is communications department inspector for this area. He is one of 29 employed by the Company to superintend the operation of an uninterrupted service over its more than 18,000 miles of lines which stretch from sea to sea.

In many ways he stands as symbolic of his brother inspectors. It is generally conceded, however, that the Revelstoke area is one of the toughest because of its mountainous terrain.

An aspect peculiar to the activity of a communications inspector is that he must have a great many qualifications beyond pure technical ability. He is constantly representing the Canadian Pacific outside its own environs. As will be seen from the accompanying photo story he enters many facets of the daily life of communities served by the Company. He visits with the TV station at Kamloops, or the news paper at Kelowna, checks the teletype facilities at Ashcroft with the department of Transport's radio range station on a mountain top, the while being able to safely operate his track motor, a Wheatstone Bridge, do a soldering job at the repeater station at Kamloops, and daily watch maintenance of 9,481 miles of telegraph wire in his district.
 

Communications inspectors are a group of men more or less dedicated to being on call 24 hours a day. Arthur DeWitt travels a minimum of 25,000 miles a year in patrolling his 500 miles of track. He has more than 360,000 insulators, set on 18,000 poles to watch, as well as 73,557 feet of underground cable, six miles of which is in the Connaught Tunnel, at one point being a mile underground. He has five linesmen and three repeater stations under his supervision as well as about 40 employees, excluding extra gangs. Among his linesmen, Mr. DeWitt is well known for having an eagle eye for cracked and broken insulators, guy wires too close to lines, and other technical un-pardonables. As one man put it, "You'd think the damn things were painted red."

Many of Mr. DeWitt's patrols are done on foot. He uses a variety of means of transportation beyond his track motor, being sometimes on snowshoes, riding a "sno-cat" snowmobile, on the front and head ends of freights, and in his own automobile.

Mr. DeWitt started with the railway working summer vacation times only, as a section hand near his hometown of Fredericton Junction, N.B. He first joined communications as a groundman at Mattawamkeag, Maine, and was 15 years a lineman in central Saskatchewan. He moved to Revelstoke as an inspector in September, 1944.

A constant source of trouble in the mountain subdivision in which Mr. DeWitt works comes from the massive snowslides. Last year Glacier, B.C., reported a somewhat lighter snowfall than usual, 350 inches, just under 30 feet of the white stuff! This makes for hazardous work for an inspector and his men in stringing duplex (emergency lines) and maintain service over the inevitable slides, often doing this in the night when there can be little warning. In recent years this hazard has been steadily lessened through the installation of more underground cables through the more difficult mountain terrain.

A casual glance over Arthur DeWitt's personal log book probably tells the story of his work as well as anything...

Of a line break near Ottertail, B.C., Moose hit by freight. Carcase thrown into pole which was snapped in two, consequent wire damage.

On a maintenance patrol, Windermere area, wild duck flew into wires, somehow flipped wires into direct short circuit, thus entrapping bird alive by neck. Released duck alive. Informed by wire chief at Revelstoke of short in this area, told him re-check. Now that's funny. It's not there anymore.

A concluding item serves to indicate there is nothing humdrum about Arthur DeWitt's daily life, self and lineman treed up a permissive signal by grizzly bear at Ross Peak.