Ad from Consumers Power Company, describing
"The Cheer of a Lonely Christmas."
From Five Hundred Representative Public Utility Advertisements, 1928
Public Utilities Advertising Association

The print reads:

"It is winter along the rivers of the North .... Naught now but the sough of lonely winds through desolate forest aisles -- and the sift of drifting snow. Where, in summer days, echoed the call of tourist and camper -- now sounds only the cracking of frozen rivers.

"Christmas can be lonely .... here"

"For here, in majestic solitude, stand the far waterpower plants -- on the frontier of service. Roads are deep-drifted; and except for radio and dispatcher's phone, far indeed is the horizon of the outside world. Save for the priceless cheer of the workers' little families clustered along the frozen rivers beside the power plants -- no neighborly streets are there to visit along, no downtown, none to drop in for a call.

"Here is made the electricity that signs along the solitary tower lines and into the genial glow of your home. Here workers stand to duty at their lonesome outposts -- unknown, perhaps, by you, but for the untiring service which keeps the lines athrob with energy ... which makes the lights gleam on your Christmas tree.

"That is their greeting to you ... and the greeting of their children to your children."

     While, by today's standards, this ad may be laying it on a bit thick, the fact remains that duty at a turn of the century hydro-plant could indeed take one to the "frontier." Even today, hydro-plant locations are dictated by geography, resulting in controversy over the affects of road-building and other construction needed to support such projects.

     And while few power companies today ask customers "to send a greeting to those serving them in far-away places," it should be noted that electric power has become such a vital part of our infrastructure, that personnel must work on holidays and be on-call at all hours to make emergency repairs. "Living out of the back of a bucket-truck," is the way one former line-man put it.