Author's experiences in Kamchatka and neighboring regions when working on Siberian sector of projected Western Union telegraph link across Bering Strait, 1865-67.
Tent Life in Siberia is a personal account of the life and travels of George Kennan in Siberia. Kennan explores Siberia to find a means by which a telegraph line might travel without interruption. Excerpt: "The attempt which was made by the Western Union Telegraph Company, in 1865-66 and 67, to build an overland line to Europe via Alaska, Bering Strait, and Siberia, was in some respects the most remarkable undertaking of the nineteenth century. Bold in its conception, and important in the ends at which it aimed, it attracted at one time the attention of the whole civilized world, and was regarded as the greatest telegraphic enterprise which had ever engaged American capital..."