Lillian Alling

by Susan Smith-Josephy

  In spite of her efforts to keep a low profile, Lillian Alling had by now become something of a celebrity across the north. Since the population of the entire Yukon Territory was, according to the 1921 census, just 4,157 and comprised of twice as many men as women, this lone woman walking to Siberia could not escape notice, and the newspapers picked up even the smallest details of her story. For example, on August 31, the Whitehorse Star reported that “at Tagish she was taken over the river by Ed Barrett.”3 The river in question was the Six Mile and Ed Barrett was the owner of the Tagish Trading Post (not to be confused with Tagish Post, which was farther south). He made a portion of his living by ferrying travellers across the river in his boat.4

  Lillian seems to have spent the night at Tagish but wasted no time on the tourist sights there as she embarked on the 19-mile (30-kilometre) trek to Carcross early the next morning. Although it is southwest of Tagish, it was the logical way to go: there was no direct trail north from Tagish to Whitehorse, but a wagon road had been built over the traditional foot trail between Tagish and Carcross, and a well-travelled road led from there to Whitehorse. The Whitehorse Star reported on her progress in its August 31 edition:

  On Saturday last [August 25] she arrived in Carcross and had a meal at the Caribou Hotel. Mr. Skelly frankly admits that he had never seen or heard of her before; nor was he able to get any information from her. She left Carcross the same afternoon, travelling in a northerly direction.5

  Tagish

  The settlement of Tagish (a Tagish Athapaskan word that means “fish trap”) sits on the banks of the Tagish River, also known as the Six Mile River, which connects Marsh and Tagish lakes, part of the Yukon River system. The original settlement in this area, a Northwest Mounted Police outpost, was 3 miles (5 kilometres) south of the present one on the east side of Tagish Lake and was called Fort Sifton to honour federal Minister of the Interior Clifford Sifton. This outpost was established during the Klondike gold rush to enable the police to register gold seekers and conduct safety inspections on their gear. After the gold rush, the main settlement was established at its present location on the riverbank and became a station on the Yukon Telegraph line.

  The Mr. Skelly referred to in the Star’s article was probably Gilbert Skelly, owner of the Kluane Roadhouse, but he may have also been running the Caribou Hotel’s restaurant as the owner, Bessie Gideon, was in failing health. As the cost of importing food to the Yukon was very high, Lillian’s dinner in Carcross would have cost as much as a dollar. She may also have bought provisions at Matthew Watson’s General Store, which was next door to the Caribou Hotel.

  Although the Star reported that Lillian left Carcross after her meal there on Saturday, August 25, and that she was “travelling in a northerly direction,” she did not travel very far that afternoon. Instead she apparently looked for a place to spend the night. It was now nearly the end of August and the daylight hours were much shorter. Already the nighttime temperatures would be dropping, and if she was still sleeping rough and only wearing the clothes that Charlie Janze had fashioned for her back at Cabin Eight on the Telegraph Trail, she would have had to make a fire each night or find an empty cabin. Her alternative was paying for accommodation in a roadhouse or private home, and up to this point she seems to have avoided paying for accommodation whenever possible.

  Carcross

  Carcross was originally known as Caribou Crossing because of the large herds of woodland caribou that crossed the river here on their annual migrations. At the end of the nineteenth century the settlement became a major stopover for gold miners on their way north to the Yukon goldfields, as well as south to Atlin for that area’s gold rush. The name of the town was changed in 1904 to eliminate confusion with towns with similar names in the Yukon and British Columbia.

  The Caribou Hotel, established in Carcross in 1898, is the oldest continually operated hotel in the Yukon; it is still open for business in the summer months. Edwin W. and Bessie G. Gideon took over the hotel in 1908; it burned to the ground a year later and they built a new one on the same site. It featured hot running water and real bathtubs. They acquired their hotel’s mascot, Polly (which happened to be a male parrot), in 1918 after its owner was drowned in the sinking of the SS Princess Sophia. The parrot was known for its foul language, and often when female visitors came, a cloth was thrown over its cage to prevent it from swearing. It lived until 1972. After Edwin Gideon died in 1925, his wife operated the hotel until her death in 1933.6

  Wherever she stayed the night of August 25, she delayed her departure the next day because she was next seen just north of Carcross on Sunday afternoon. According to the Whitehorse Star:

  On Sunday afternoon Mr. and Mrs. George Wilson overtook her between Carcross and Robinson and she rode in the car with them as far as Robinson, where she got out, saying that she was going to rest a while. Beyond saying that she was going a little north of Whitehorse, she had very little to say to Mr. and Mrs. Wilson. She did say, however, that for a part of her journey she had a pack dog but that he was drowned in crossing a stream. When warned that she would have streams to cross between here and Dawson, she said that she would cross them on a log.7

  Robinson was only 20 miles (32 kilometres) north of Carcross, and Whitehorse was just 20 miles beyond that, but according to the Star, Lillian did not reach Whitehorse until the evening of Monday, August 27. It seems apparent, therefore, that when she told the Wilsons that she was “going to rest a while” at Robinson, she planned to find some kind of overnight lodging there. The tiny settlement of Robinson memorialized “Stikine Bill” Robinson, who had been hired by the White Pass and Yukon Railway to lay the grade and manage delivery of construction materials and supplies from the White Pass to Whitehorse. The company had named a flag station in his honour, and a roadhouse was established nearby. It began as one log cabin lodge, a saloon and three tents but it gradually grew into a small townsite. It was abandoned in 1915 after the decline of mineral discoveries in the area. By the time Lillian came that way, she would have had her pick of the abandoned cabins.

  The next report from the Whitehorse Star announced that, after weeks of anticipation, Lillian Alling had actually arrived in Whitehorse.

  A woman giving the name of Lillian Alling walked into town Monday evening [August 27] and registered at the Regina Hotel. Lillian was not given to much speaking, but as near as can be gathered from information she gave at different places she had walked from Hazelton to Whitehorse, a distance of about six hundred miles, following the government telegraph line all the way … She told Mr. Erickson that she did not have very much money, and she seemed to be conserving her resources but paying her way.8

  The owners of the Regina Hotel in August 1928 were Olaf “Ole” Erickson and his wife, Kristina, both born in Sweden, who had bought the hotel just a year earlier. At the age of fifty, Erickson knew that owning and running a hotel, no matter how difficult the challenges, would provide a better income for his family than relying on the irregular returns from gold mining. The Ericksons gained a reputation as excellent hosts and providers of good food; their hotel also had an air of respectability because rowdiness was not tolerated.9

  The Ericksons’ children, daughter Gudrun, also known as Goodie, and son John, continued to run the hotel until the 1990s. Goodie, whose married name is Sparling, was born in 1926 and grew up in the family hotel. She was two years old when Lillian stayed at the Regina, but she recalls her parents talking about Lillian’s visit there. She remembers her father describing her as “a very slight woman” and saying that he “thought she was nuts.” Goodie thinks she recalls a photo of her “wearing jodhpurs” and that she was shown her signature in the hotel registry.10

  Lillian began the 270-mile (434-kilometre) trek to Dawson City on August 28. The Whitehorse Star, in announcing her departure, noted that:

  She had no means whatsoever of killing wild game and was carrying very little food. If she knows her destination, she is not telling, but she started north from Wh
itehorse on the Dawson trail Tuesday forenoon.11

  The Star also told its readers that, when Lillian left on that August morning, the only provision she carried was a loaf of bread, “which she had cut in three pieces as she said she was not carrying a knife.”

  Whitehorse

  Whitehorse was the traditional home of the Kwanlin Dun First Nation. Non-Native settlement began during the early days of the Klondike gold rush, and grew to a flood of prospectors and miners after the town became the northern terminus of the White Pass and Yukon Railway. As it was also the upper limit of navigable water for the steamboats on the Yukon River, about two thousand people had settled there before the gold rush was over in 1900.

  A short-lived copper boom in the nearby copper belt ended in 1920. The whole area was then promoted as a hunting and fishing tourism destination, and Whitehorse became an outfitting and takeoff base. However, there had been a steady outflow of population since the copper boom ended, and the town’s population slid to 754 persons by the beginning of World War II.

  Notes

  (1) Miller, Bill. Wires in the Wilderness. Victoria: Heritage House Publishing Company Ltd., 2004, page 137.

  (2) Reed, Eleanor Stoy. “I Walked Empty Handed.” Interview with Winfield Woolf, 1929. In the Reed Family Papers, Box #2, Archives, University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

  (3) “Whitehorse Visited by Woman Hiker,” the Whitehorse Star, August 31, 1928.

  (4) Not to be confused with the Tagish Post at Fort Sifton, which was farther south. Information on Ed Barrett, email correspondence with Albert James of Tagish, Yukon, and Leslie Hamson, North Words Consulting, April 28, 2010.

  (5) “Whitehorse Visited by Woman Hiker.”

  (6) Hollmann, Dietger. “Der weite Weg der Liliane Alling.” Unpublished manuscript (in German).

  (7) “Whitehorse Visited by Woman Hiker.”

  (8) Ibid.

  (9) Gaffin, Jane. “John Olaf Erickson: Prospector and Hotelier.” Unpublished article.

  (10) Leslie Hamson, phone interview with Goodie (Gudrun) Sparling, Whitehorse, April 26, 2009.

  (11) “Whitehorse Visited by Woman Hiker.”

  Chapter Eight: The Road to Dawson

  The “new government road” that was built to connect Whitehorse and Dawson in 1902 was actually more trail than road, and it was divided into five separate sections by the Takhini, Yukon, Pelly and Stewart rivers. But by the 1920s, the Yukon government was having difficulty maintaining roads, and this route was in very bad shape.1 Between the poor condition of the road and fewer daylight travelling hours, Lillian’s walking speed was reduced from a high of 30 miles (48 kilometres) per day to a new low of just 10 miles (16 kilometres). It was also much more difficult to find shelter for the night. Laura Berton, in her book I Married the Klondike, described the route at this time:

  Many of the roadhouses, which in the old days had been spotted every twenty-two miles along the winter road, were closed. Passengers now had to provide their own lunches and these were eaten in the open after being thawed out by a bonfire on the side of the trail.2

  When Lillian could not make it to a roadhouse or where there wasn’t one to be found, occasionally she may have come across an abandoned cabin, a few of which were still fully equipped all these years after the Klondike gold rush. As freight rates were so high, it had been impractical for most of the miners to ship their household goods out, so they had just abandoned everything, and for many years travellers could find bedding, furniture, curtains, cooking utensils and more. However, by the late 1920s, the years and the weather had taken their toll, and most of the houses had lost their contents and structure to either passersby or the winter snows.

  This late in the year it was also impossible for her to live off the land. By September the fresh berries at the roadside would have been eaten by birds or bears or would have dried up in the summer sun. She had no traps or snares to catch small game, or fishing equipment—although the rivers teemed with record-sized trout.

  The Whitehorse Star, which had begun referring to Lillian as “the Mystery Woman,” caught up with her progress just 22 miles (35 kilometres) north of Whitehorse where the new government road was bisected by the Takhini River. There she met James Adams, the keeper of the roadhouse at that point, who “had misgivings about extending the usual courtesies.” The “usual courtesies”3 in this case meant taking her across the river in his boat. Fortunately, he appears to have quelled his misgivings, because the newspaper’s next report, delivered to its avid readers on September 7, placed her northeast of that point:

  The last report of the mystery woman was that she was seen by H. Chambers some distance east of Tahkinna [sic] several days after she left here. Mr. Chambers offered to give her a ride to the fork of the road but she declined.4

  Mr. Chambers was probably Harry “Shorty” Chambers, vice-president of the Whitehorse Board of Trade.

  There were no further reports until she reached Carmacks, a settlement at the junction of the Yukon and Nordenskiold rivers.5 The Whitehorse Star reported that “the mystery woman passed through Carmacks but she maintained her silence.”6 However, the paper noted that “she made some meagre purchases”7 before she continued her journey. It was now about September 10 and she was 112 miles (180 kilometres) north of Whitehorse, but she still had 225 miles (360 kilometres) to go to reach Dawson City.

  A few days after leaving Carmacks, the paper reported that she had travelled another 30 miles (48 kilometres) north and arrived at Yukon Crossing “where she allowed H.O. Lokken to put her over the river. She still has the Pelly and Stewart rivers to negotiate.”8 Harold O. Lokken had arrived in the district during the gold rush years, had served as head linesman on the Yukon Telegraph for many years and was still an active prospector. Lokken also acted as the local ferryman.

  By mid-September, Lillian had passed through Pelly Crossing where, the Whitehorse Star informed its readers, “A. Shafer” had taken her across the Pelly River in his boat. This would have been Alexander Shafer who, with his wife Margaret, ran the Pelly Crossing roadhouse.9

  Then, according to the Dawson News, Lillian walked the 40 miles (64 kilometres) from Pelly Crossing north to Stewart Crossing on the shore of the Stewart River, arriving near the end of September. By this time she had walked some 252 miles (405 kilometres) from Whitehorse.

  At Stewart Crossing, she bought or was given a type of raft known as a “float-me-down,” composed of whatever logs and branches happen to be at hand. It was on this contraption that she floated down the Stewart River until she reached the settlement known as Stewart City, which lies at the junction of the Stewart and Yukon rivers. At this point a storm blew up and it became too dangerous to launch her raft onto the Yukon River, and she was forced to stay on shore for a few days. The Whitehorse Star noted that “T.A. Dickson’s survey party was camped [there] and the boys cared for her for three days during a bad storm.”10 Thomas A. Dickson (1856-1952) was one of four brothers who had all been members of the North West Mounted Police. Thomas Dickson had served with the Tagish detachment in 1898 and after leaving the force had become the Yukon’s first big-game guide.11

  Lillian’s choice of transportation was not an unusual one for this region. With no roads and few trails, but with plenty of fairly navigable rivers, locals and visitors alike used boats and rafts of all kinds as a main form of transportation. “When the ice at last cleared,” wrote Archie Satterfield in his book After the Gold Rush, “they launched an armada of steamboats, canoes, rowboats, skin boats and rafts called ‘float-me-downs’ that they sold for lumber in Dawson City.”12 Even children were trusted to float down the river safely towards Dawson. Alex Van Bibber, who as an adult was a well-known big game guide and outfitter, described his trip down the river from Pelly Crossing toward Dawson to attend boarding school at St. Paul’s Hostel:

  To get to school in Dawson in September, we used a raft. My dad wouldn’t see us paying for tickets on a sternwheeler when the river ran in that direction anyway. So he
built a raft and loaded us on it with a bunch of vegetables. Before he pushed us out into the current, the old man would give us some advice. “If the raft starts to get water-logged, just pull into a drift pile and tie a few more logs on to give it some buoyancy. It’ll keep floating that way.” We were still pretty young and scared of bears, so most of the time we would sleep right on the raft. When we did spend the night on the beach, we’d make sure we were real close to that raft, and if we heard any noises, we didn’t waste any time poling it out into the river again. All us kids would just huddle together in an old broken down sleeping bag that we’d sell or just throw away after we got to the other end.13

  Alex was one of the sixteen children of Ira Van Bibber, who was originally from West Virginia, and his wife, Eliza, affectionately known as “Short.” She was a Tlingit of the Crow clan and was originally from Juneau, Alaska. They owned two roadhouses in Pelly Crossing.

  But Lillian was not destined to continue her journey on her “float-me-down” all the way to Dawson City. According to an article written by Irving J. Reed for Alaska Life in June 1942, when she showed up at the confluence of the two rivers on her roughly hewn home-made raft, it looked “so dangerous that a sourdough along the bank took pity on her. He gave her his boat so that she might continue more safely her journey from the mouth of the Stewart, down the Yukon River to Dawson.”14 The fact that all further sightings of her on her river travels place her in a boat rather than on a raft suggests that this was probably how and where she acquired it.