In this thesis, the development of a Dominion government telegraph on a portion of the Canadian frontier is analyzed as a formative moment of socialization and cultural expression. It utilizes a socio-cultural framework for understanding the 'experience of space'; notably how changes in presence or access to one another--facilitated by this new mode of communication--are central to this experience. / The thesis argues that the telegraph is crucially related to issues of public confidence. Its approach draws upon recent social and cultural treatments of communication technologies which stress the ways that the material reality of such technologies become part of a larger social and symbolic order. The thesis refers to indicators such as reliability, public works, public interest, competence, and trust to investigate a social apprehension of confidence. 'Confidence', in this case, is not treated as fixed and equally understood, but as something that is invested, shared, built-up and worn down. Thus concerns for and with 'public confidence' help to reveal changes in socio-cultural development.

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