Telegraph Trail Traditional Cache
Dutchduane: Gone again, and gone too many times! Bye!
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size:
 (micro)
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This nano cache is located along the old Telegraph Road in Bellingham. I plan to place several communications themed caches along the Telegraph Road from Bellingham to the Canadian Border at Sumas. This is the first in the series.
In the 1860s, the Western Union Telegraph Company started on a very ambitious undertaking - the building of a telegraph line from New York to Europe by way of Alaska, the Bering Straits, and Russia. This was before the Atlantic submarine telegraph cable had been laid. Many experts at the time felt that a submarine telegraph cable all the way across the Atlantic would never work. Work was started in many different places, Bellingham being one of them. A 50 foot wide right of way was cleared from Bellingham, through British Columbia and the Yukon Territory to Alaska, and work was started in western Alaska to build the telegraph line eastward. Work stopped abruptly when the trans-Atlantic cable was successfully completed in 1867. The telegraph line through Canada was completed, along the same cleared right of way, in about 1900 during the Klondike gold rush, connecting Dawson City in the Yukon to the outside world. The telegraph line was continued on from Dawson City to Alaska about two years later, and pushed on to Nome, Alaska in 1903. Telegraphic communications from the American territory of Alaska to the United States went through Canada until 1904, when the first submarine cable was laid from the Seattle area to Sitka and Valdez, Alaska.
Please be careful when hunting for this cache, and do not tear up any of the landscaping and/or shrubbery. The cache is hidden in plain sight; if you can't see it from 6 feet away, you haven't found it. You should only have to put one foot off the pavement to retrieve and return it. Also please be careful when returning the cache to its "hiding" place, as it is a nano. If you drop it into the vegetation, it will be very difficult to find.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Nobhg jnvfg uvtu ba n fubeg areq.