Lillian Alling (8 page)
Winfield Woolf, who came this way one year later, described the route after Cabin Eight:
The scenery became more wonderful as I went on. From the eighth cabin the trail really began to climb. Above timber line for ten miles and working my way through a steep gorge along the side of a creek to its very beginning, I emerged upon a snow-covered upland plateau or pass, which at the highest point of the trail is 7,500 feet in elevation. Like giants seated in a circle around a mighty table, the smooth white heads and shoulders of encircling mountains rose a thousand feet higher than the edges of the plateau. Clouds, some white, others grey, were seething around their foreheads. Where the clouds were grey, I knew that it was snowing up there. I tried to hurry my steps in order not to get caught at such a high altitude without blankets in a blizzard. I was glad to get down in the lowlands again, even though the scenery up there seemed the most impressive of my entire trip.
5
Lineman Jim Christie offered to escort Lillian partway to the next cabin, and it was decided that Christie would walk with Lillian over the Nass Summit and past the abandoned ninth cabin to a refuge cabin 27 miles (43 kilometres) south of the Echo Lake station.
6
He telegraphed this information ahead and learned that lineman Cyril J. Tooley was relieving the regular lineman, Bob Quinn, at Echo Lake. Tooley and telegraph operator Scotty Ogilvie, stationed at Echo Lake, expressed their willingness to help Lillian, but first Tooley had to head north to deal with some line trouble. Somethingâprobably fallen treesâwas preventing transmission. He cleaned up the cabin and headed north. On the morning of July 8, fifty-year-old telegraph operator Scotty Ogilvie strapped packs on his two dogs and walked south to meet Lillian and Jim Christie. They were fated never to meet.
*
Charlie Janze was still reluctant to let Lillian continue north to Echo Lake because it was spring runoff time, making it especially dangerous to cross rivers and streams. But Lillian wanted to be on her way and Janze was slightly comforted by the fact that lineman Jim Christie would accompany her part of the way. The trail after Cabin Eight was very steep, and Lillian and Christie would have had a steady climb. The next part of the route was above the timber line and ran alongside some creeks,
7
but eventually Christie and Lillian got over Nass Summit and passed the abandoned ninth cabin, stopping at last at the refuge cabin south of Echo Lake.
Meanwhile, it took Cyril Tooley a few hours to correct the line trouble north of Echo Lake, after which he stopped for the night at the refuge cabin about 8 miles (13 kilometres) north of the station. From there he tried to call his partner, Scotty Ogilvie. Concerned when he received no answer, he contacted Telegraph Creek where Jack Wrathall, the wire chief, confirmed Tooley's worst fears. Ogilvie had not reported in since early that morning when he had told Wrathall that he and his dogs were leaving Echo Lake to meet Lillian Alling and Jim Christie on the trail.
The next morning, Tooley headed south past the Echo Lake station and continued on toward the refuge cabin 7 miles (11 kilometres) south of the lake. There he came upon the sad sight of Ogilvie's two dogs sitting close together on the cabin's stoop for warmth and comfort. They were still wearing their packs and they were soaking wet. He took care of the dogs the best he could and then tried to get them to go with him. When they wouldn't budge, he followed their tracks and soon found Ogilvie's tracks, too. They led to the bank of the river where there were signs of a recent collapse.
Tooley returned to the seven-mile cabin to use the telegraph. This time he reached Christie. Tooley asked him to leave Lillian at the refuge cabin and meet him on the trail the next day. Once they met up, Tooley and Christie walked north to the Ningunsaw River, where the flooding forced them to make bridges out of fallen trees and old logs. The route was hazardous, wet and time-consuming, but they kept going, determined to find Ogilvie. Then, in one of the flooded channels as they slipped on the mud, moved water-soaked logs and heaved aside sharp branches, Tooley was shocked and saddened to discover the body of Scotty Ogilvie pushed against a big cottonwood tree. He had died the day before, July 8.
8
Tooley later wrote: “With heavy hearts Jim Christie and I moved the body to a small island in mid-stream. Scotty had apparently struck his head when he fell in and broke his neck.” Christie and Tooley wrapped Ogilvie's body in a Hudson's Bay blanket, made a makeshift stretcher and carried him to the edge of the river. There they dug a grave and buried him with a short and sad prayer.
After this long and distressing day the two men headed for the refuge cabin where Christie had left Lillian and were pleased to find that she had a roaring fire going. Tooley recalled Lillian's devastation over Ogilvie's death. “Like us,” he wrote, “she was deeply moved by the tragedy.”
According to the
Vancouver Sun
article by Stainsby, Lillian wanted to pay her respects.
When Tooley returned that way later with Lillian Alling, she stopped at the fresh grave, seven miles from the Echo Lake Cabin. She gathered some wild flowers to place upon it, knelt and prayed for the man she had never seen who had died trying to help her.
9
The official report of Ogilvie's death was the responsibility of Constable G.E. Ashton, who was in charge of the Telegraph Creek Detachment of the British Columbia Police. On July 21 he filed the following report to the Official Administrator at Telegraph Creek:
Drysdale Ogilvie,
Echo Lake, Accidentaly [
sic
] Drowned:
Sir:-
I beg to report the death of the above, who was a lineman at Echo Lake for the Yukon Telegraph Line, on July 8, 1928.
The deceased was apparently looking for a new crossing over the Ningunsaw River above the usual cable crossing and walked on a gravel cut bank which had become undermined by the river and which gave way with him and threw him into the river.
His body was found by linemen J.F. Christie and C.J. Tooley about a hundred yards downstream from the cut bank lodged against a drift log and was buried nearby.
His effects were brought in by J.F. Callbreaths [
sic
] pack train and will be forwarded to you forthwith. A list of his effects is attached herewith.
Yours obediently,
G.E. Ashton
Const BC Police i/c Telegraph Creek Detach.
[Stamped July 21, 1928, Government Agent.]
10
Scotty Ogilvie was well known in Hazelton and his death was reported in the
Omineca Herald
of Wednesday, July 11, 1928:
SCOTTY OGALVIE [
sic
] WAS DROWNED IN FAR NORTH
Drysdale “Scotty” Ogilvie came to his death while in the performance of his duty on the Yukon Telegraph line on Friday, July 6, 1928. Scotty has been in charge of the cabin at Echo Lake with C.J. Tooley. Last Friday morning he went out to do his beat, which necessitated his crossing the Linkinsaw [
sic
] river. The river was high and there was a log jam. He attempted to cross on the log jam. He did not return to his cabin that night and next day his partner (Tooley) and F.J. Christie, lineman at 8th cabin, went out to seek him. They found his body in the Linkinsaw River Monday morning at half-past eleven. Word was sent to headquarters through the Hazelton office of the Dominion Telegraphs and authority was then sent to the provincial constable at Telegraph Creek to decide on the disposition of the body.
Drysdale Ogalvie was an old-timer in this country. He was around Hazelton in the early days of railway construction and was known and liked by everyone with whom he came in contact. He had a jolly disposition and was also quite an entertainer. These qualifications made him many warm friends, and there will be general regret at his tragic end. He was a native of Glasgow and was forty-six years of age. He had been with the Dominion Telegraphs off and on for the past ten years. “Scotty” went overseas with the Pioneers from this district and gave full service at the front. Of all the boys who went overseas from this section he was one of the few who came back here and stayed.
11
The men of the telegraph line were devastated by Ogilvie's death, and since he died on his way to help Lillian, it was not surprising that some of his fellow linesmen and operators felt resentment toward the woman who caused his death.
12
As a result, most of the subsequent reports have her simply walking away after his death, accompanied by a dog.
14
Traveller Winfield Woolf, who journeyed up the Telegraph Trail a year after Lillian, recounted his own experience crossing one of the flooded streams on the Trail:
For a long time I stood on the bank trying to decide which was the better chanceâswimming the rapids or crossing on the cable. First I attempted hanging on to the wire with my hands, but finding this impossible, I returned to the shore. Then I walked upstream looking for a place to ford. The man at the last station had presented me with a shoulder of caribou and a can of tongue. Knowing that I could not now carry these with me, I tried to throw the meat across to the opposite bank. However, it landed short. When I saw what the current did to that shoulder of caribou, I changed my mind about attempting to ford the river. To make doubly certain, I flipped a dime I had in my pocket. The wire won. Before starting out, I sat down to eat the can of tongue, knowing I would need strength for the ordeal ahead of me. Having learned that I could not support myself by my arms alone on the cable, I wrapped my legs around it and, like a South American sloth, pulled myself across with my hands. Right over the middle of the river, my strength gave out. I was so exhausted that the temptation came to me to let myself drop. It seemed the easiest thing to do. But one look down at the white rapids and rocks below gave me the willpower to go on. On reaching the opposite shore, I was so all in that I could go no further that day.
14
*
By some accounts Jim Christie gave Lillian a dog called Bruno, and since Christie was the person who took the only known photograph of Lillian with a dog, perhaps the dog in the photograph is Bruno. Lineman Cyril Tooley, however, said that Christie's dog was called Coyote and that Christie never gave a dog to Lillian. Author Diane Solie Smith, in her booklet on Lillian Alling, says that it was Tommy Hankin, who worked at the Echo Lake cabin, who gave Lillian his black and white lead dog, a husky called Bruno. According to Smith, Hankin told Lillian to keep the dog on a lead because trappers had left poison out for wolverines. By the time Lillian reached Nahlin, she no longer had a dog. It had either died or run away. Smith wrote that Bruno died at Iskut River, probably after eating the lethal bait. When questioned later by people in the Yukon about her dog, Lillian did mention that she had briefly owned a pack dog that had drowned. Diane Solie Smith makes a good point when she says: “Maybe she wished to hide the mistake of letting him roam loose to sample poisoned bait.”
15
There are many contradictory tales of Lillian travelling with a dog, but it is clear from this picture that she did have a four-legged companion, at least for a while. This photo was taken by Jim Christie and was originally published in the
Beaver: Canada's History Magazine
, 1943.
Clearly, Lillian did have a dog for a short time. She got it somewhere around Cabin Eight or the Nass Summit and no longer had it by the time she reached Nahlin. But bizarrely, the story of the dog took on a strange life of its own and a number of erroneous reports have Lillian travelling through the Yukon and Alaska carrying a stuffed dog perched on the top of her backpack. Even Donald Stainsby, who did such a good job of tracking down the men who met Lillian so many years ago for his otherwise reliable
Vancouver Sun
article of 1963, perpetuated the myth of the stuffed dog. When Lillian arrived in Atlin, wrote Stainsby,
[S]he strode into town alone, her stick in her hand, and her knapsack on her backâand atop her pack the lightly-stuffed hide of Bruno. Where or how the dog died are not known. But the hide, stuffed with grass, stayed with her as long as there is a record of her because, as she is reported to have told a hotel keeper in Atlin, “He was my only friend and he will always remain with me.”
16
Stainsby also wrote that when Lillian later launched herself down the Yukon River, the stuffed hide of Bruno was on the top of her provisions, inside the raft. Writer Edward Hoagland perpetuated the ridiculous stuffed-dog story in a book published in 1969: “They gave her a puppy, which died, so she skinned it and stuffed it with grass, continuing to carry it under her arm.”
17
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- (1)
Omineca Herald
, June 20, 1928. - (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)
Miller, Bill.
Wires in the Wilderness.
Victoria: Heritage House Publishing Company Ltd., 2004, page 213. - (4)
Stainsby, Donald. “She Walked 6,000 Miles to the Top Of The World,”
Vancouver Sun
, April 27, 1963. - (5)
Reed. “I Walked Empty Handed.” - (6)
Stainsby. “She Walked 6,000 Miles.” - (7)
Reed. “I Walked Empty Handed.” - (8)
Certificate of registration of death, Province of British Columbia. - (9)
Stainsby. “She Walked 6,000 Miles,” pages 25 and 34. - (10)
This letter was on the same microfilm reel as Scotty's death certificate. - (11)
Omineca Herald
, Wednesday, July 11, 1928. Although the newspaper reported that Scotty died on July 6, the official death record states he died on July 8. - (12)
One account has Lillian saying, upon seeing the low river, “How could a man be so dumb as to drown in a dry creek?”âcited in Miller,
Wires in the Wilderness
, page 224. This was based on an interview with Eric Janze, nephew of Charlie Janze, who was quoting his uncle. Interview by Bill Miller, May 9, 2001. - (13)
Stainsby. “She Walked 6,000 Miles.” - (14)
Reed. “I Walked Empty Handed.” - (15)
Smith, Diane Solie. “The Legend of Lillian Alling: The Woman Who Walked to Russia,” Atlin Historical Society, 1997. - (16)
Stainsby. “She Walked 6,000 Miles.” - (17)
Hoagland, Edward.
Notes from the Century: A journal from British Columbia
. Vancouver/Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre, 1969, page 223.