Yesterday afternoon and eveining I was on a service call at an elderly ladies house. The work was all in her living room and she enjoyed telling me stories of the old Sumpter valley and surrounding area. This all relates both to the snow, the East Ore. Light and Power Co. that was discussed a while back and the rr. She said she and her husband took one of the operators jobs at the E.O.L&P Cove plant when they were first married in the early 30's. They were offered the job to attend the substation at Bourne which is up Cracker Crk. above Sumpter. There were pole top mounted switches with operating handles at grade level on the lines comming from Rock Crk and Fremont which joined to go down Cracker Crk. to the Sumpter Vly. There was also a line to the E&E mine and mill just above the substation. She said is was very important in those days to make sure there was no interuption of power going down to the dredge. She said she and her husband had to haul in enough provisions for the entire winter as the snow depth at the substation was about 8' with the only way out being on snow shoes. She said each day her husband patrolled the lines on snowshoes for trees leaning into the lines and such. They had a phone line between the power stations and phones located along the route of the power line through the mountains. On at least one occasion she received a call instructing her to throw the switches on the power line as her husband was out patrolling. She said she was not really strong enough to do it and the with the first try all she had all sorts of arching and flashing going on over her head and she wondered if she had killed somebody. She called out on the phone and was instructed to try again and managed this time.
She said she had a wisdom tooth go bad and somehow they got her down to Sumpter to the depot and she road the SVRy to Baker. One of the operators from Baker picked her up at the depot and got her to the dentist. She said they always waved at the SVRy train crews when they saw a train and the crews were always very freindly and waved back.
After she and her husband had worked a season at Bourne, they were transfered to the Fremont Power house. She said like at Rock Crk. and Cove there were 3 operator's houses so someone was on duty 24 hours a day. She said about 8' of snow was also typical of winter conditions at Fremont. She said they also had an operator that lived at Olive Lake which is the source of water for Fremont. She said at the time they were there Fremont also supplied the power for the Red Boy mine just below the plant so keeping everything running without interuption was real important to a lot of people.
Sorry there is not more N.G content, but this all fits in with the comments about the snow.
