Whatever Became of Lillian Alling?
The incredible Lillian Alling set out for Siberia or bust: 6000 miles on foot, at 30 miles a day!
Some years ago a Kelowna adventurer announced plans to make a third attempt to cross Bering Strait by ski and paddle. This frozen waterway separating Alaska from Russia is only 84 kilometres as the crow flies—but even with the help of El Nino it would have been a challenge for Gordon Thomas and his Russian companion.
Perhaps someone should have told them that it’s been done. Seventy years before. By a woman. Maybe!
Lillian Alling had “the instincts of a homing pigeon,” the late Francis Dickie wrote of Lillian Alling. From New York City to Alaska this Russian woman, compelled by an obsession to return to Siberia through “some of the most life defying mountain wilderness in the world,” set out to get there by walking.
“We shall not see her like again,” Dickie marvelled.
Let’s repeat that: Lillian Alling hiked 6,000 miles across the U.S. and western Canada with only a small dog for companionship part of the way. To the incredulous people she met, she’d mutter only, “I go to Siberia.” Defying all good intentioned attempts to dissuade her, as police had no legal grounds on which to detain her, she made her way through British Columbia, the Yukon, across Alaska and to the shores of Bering Strait.
Little is known of Lillian’s background other than she was 25 years old in 1927, spoke good English, appeared to be well educated and had worked in New York as a maid. She told a B.C. Provincial policeman that she couldn’t afford a steamship ticket to Russia so had decided to walk after studying maps in a library.
At Hazelton Lillian dismissed another policeman’s concerns for her safety by saying that only Bering Strait posed a challenge to her: she hadn’t decided how she was going to cross its 50-mile breadth.
She’d left New York that spring; by mid-September she was in the Yukon. That’s something in the order of 30 miles per day! Lillian denied having hitch-hiked and veteran outdoorsmen had no doubts but that she’d walked all the way after they witnessed her rapid pace in the bush. But Lillian’s amazing accomplishment wasn’t good enough; winter was approaching and her hiking costume—scarf, skirt, shirt and boots—were in tatters.
Provincial Police Sgt. W.J. Service was appalled by her skin-and-bone appearance. To his argument that she couldn’t survive without adequate food, clothing and equipment, Lillian replied, “I have three loaves of bread and some tea. I must go on. Please do not stop me.”
In desperation Service arrested her for vagrancy, despite her having $20.
As, technically, this negated the vagrancy charge, Hazelton Justice of the Peace William Grant ingeniously fined Lillian $25 for carrying a concealed weapon—an iron bar which she hid under her skirt as protection, she said, against men.
They hadn’t reckoned with Lillian Alling’s determination although, upon her release from Oakalla prison in November, even she realized that it was too late to proceed that year. She found kitchen work in Vancouver until late May, then headed north. This time police were watching for her. Telegraph linesmen and trappers reported her advance—at an average of 35 miles a day—without rides, across often deadly terrain! Seasoned woodsmen could scarcely believe it.
Police had to content themselves with making her promise to check in with each of the Yukon Telegraph linesmen.
On September 12 Lillian Alling reached Cabin 8, six cabins and 140 miles ahead of her previous year’s progress. Telegraphers Jim Christies and Charlie Janze were expecting her—but not the walking skeleton that stumbled across their doorstep. Lillian was malnourished, her face ballooned out from insect bites, her clothes worn away. It was obvious that the Iron Lady was almost exhausted.
But the mad obsession to go on burned in her eyes.
They let Lillian rest for three days, plied her with food then outfitted her with new clothes and boots, loaded her packsack with grub, and gave her a black and white dog for a companion. “He will always remain with me,” she exclaimed with emotion. Christie accompanied her as far as Cabin 9 which put her at the foot of the summit; beyond lay Atlin and Dawson City.
Lillian made it to Dawson by November, although her dog, which she’d stuff with dry grass, had died from unstated causes. She worked as a waitress and avoided company while she repaired an old skiff she’d bought. Came spring, she drifted down the Yukon River to Nome.
Months later, an astonished Eskimo reported having encountered a lone woman high in the Arctic. She was pushing a wheelbarrow loaded with her gear—and a stuffed dog.
Did Lillian Alling make it across Bering Strait to Siberia? We don’t know. It doesn’t seem likely. But it’s awfully tempting to give this remarkable woman the benefit of a doubt!
FOOTNOTE: In June 2007, in an almost eerie echo of Lillian Alling, 80 years before, British adventurer Rosie Stancer abandoned her attempt to become the first woman to trek alone across the Arctic to the North Pole. Threatened by, of all things, the melting effects of global warming on the Arctic ice caps, she said, “It threatened my life on a daily basis… I was frightened out of my skin by the effects of it.”
At least the effects of global warming were something that Lillian Alling hadn’t had to face.
Those are the type of stories that intrigue the hell out of me. I can guarantee that even as a young fairly fit lad that could never keep up her pace and determination. Here is hoping that she actually made it with the stuffed dog
That sad fact is, Brian, if by some fluke she made it all the way to Russian soil she’d have been arrested by the Soviets and shot as a spy!
That is a possibility TW. The czarist regime was just as suspicious as the one that came after it. Quite the determined gal. Knowing her whole story would be very interesting too
Lillian did make it to Siberia. She married my grand uncle Альберт and moved to Yakutsk. Her children have moved to Leningrad but the entire town knows she treked from USA.
How about that? I always thought that if she did make it to Siberia Stalin would have had her arrested as a spy!
Greetings! Do you have photos of Lillian?
I just googled Lillian. If you try it you’ll see two photos of her and her dog, one closeup of her head and shoulders.
Greetings! Do you have photos of Lillian? Please reply with more details! You have the answer to a mystery
The Royal BC Archives has a photo of Lillian with her dog. You probably can view it online. –TW
She was a hero!
I just watched the movie “Lillian”.
I was stunned.
Greetings! Do you have photos of Lillian?
See above.
i doubt it was difficult for her to hitch a ride across the strait as the indigenous traffic would have been frequent. Interesting to read this story as my great grandfather Serape Leon worked with Cataline who had the contract to supply the telegraph cabins. They would travel with the pack train from Hazelton up to Dawson in the years before Cataline retired in 1912.Serape is the son-in-law of Lucie Bones Truran who was part of that other story you wrote in regards to the manhunt around Clinton. I just discovered where Lucie lived at Jesmond for many years..where the present day Echo Valley lodge is.Lucies son owned the 150 acre property.
Hi, John:
Since you and I corresponded re: Lucie Bones Truran, I’ve created a brand new website, http://www.CowichanChronicles.com, and that’s where I’m going to post an article with the material you provided me. I was shuffling my files just yesterday and revising my publishing schedule and saw your emails and photos. Thank you again, and please stay tuned as I shall be getting back to you shortly.
Speaking of Cataline, did you know a book has just been written about him? There was a review in the Times Colonist.
And as for Lillian Alling, did she make it? We’ll never know but it’s pleasing to give her the benefit of the doubt. What a remarkable woman! –TW
I was so impressed with Lillian – so moved by her passion and yearning for home, that I have made a ceramic sculpture of what I imagine she might have looked like. Now she need no longer be brave or lonely or hungry. She stands on my desk,and admire her every day. I wish I could send a picture. Emma
Hi, Emma:
Of all the remarkable characters who have made our province’s history what it is, Lillian Alling is truly unique. What an incredible woman!
Believe it or not, I have another story about a woman hiker who also made history of sorts. I’ll have to dig it put of my archives. (Her name was Anna Mae Ullman, a nurse, as I recall.)
I think it’s cool that you’ve honoured her with your sculpture an that you use her a as source of daily inspiration. Cheers, TW
Thank you. But I specifically meant photos in Russia of her life there after she made it across. I was asking of the Russian Speaker who posted on the blog. Photos after her marriage to a Russian man, photos of her life in Russia.
There is already plenty on her life in the US.
I’d want some corroboration that she made it across to Russia. At least the accounts of her incredikle hike through B.C. are matters of fact.
Exactly why I asked the Russian speaker who posted for photos.
I would love to believe she made it back to Russia but I seriously doubt it. The reports of her health and physical condition prior to trying to cross the Bering Strait are not good, to say the least. If anyone has verified photos or proof of her alive in Russia, we’d all love to see them!