Free Lillian Alling by Susan Smith-Josephy Page B

fares of approximately two cents per mile, this may have been too much money for her to spend. On the other hand, she may also have accepted rides as it is known that she did so later in her journey.
    An extensive article about Lillian Alling written by Richard W. Cooper and published in the magazine
Western People
in 1985 describes Lillian’s journey west from Winnipeg:
    About March 1, 1927, she arrived in Winnipeg. Here she felt the most at home, for many Winnipeg people spoke her language. She stayed until the end of March, working as kitchen help in Child’s Restaurant on Portage Avenue, where she was known as a good worker who kept to herself. She was next seen in Neepawa, Manitoba, where she stopped with a farm family for a few days, helping around the farm in return for food.
    The next reasonably accurate report of Lillian Alling came from Kamsack, Saskatchewan. Then there was a definite report of the lone woman hiker in Wakaw, Saskatchewan, where she checked with the RCMP detachment on the shortest route to Alaska. Police records from Wakaw indicate she arrived about the end of April; she had averaged more than 30 kilometres a day on her journey northwest.
    On May 2 Alling set out from Wakaw and was not heard of again until she appeared in Grande Prairie, Alberta, on June 15, 1927. A farmer’s wife said the Russian woman was then wearing some new clothing. She worked as household help in a Grande Prairie farm until early in July then again set out on what had now become an obsession. Her farm employer gave her a lift to Pouce Coupe where she crossed into British Columbia. 2
    Naismith’s Rule
    According to the formula devised by the Scottish mountain climber William Naismith in the late 1800s—a formula still used by hikers today—it is possible for the average hiker to cover three miles (4.8 kilometres) of flat terrain in one hour. However, when the hiker leaves flat terrain, he must factor in an additional half hour of walking for every 1,000 feet (305 metres) of total ascent. This is not just the difference between the highest and lowest spots on the route. The total ascent is the sum of the entire uphill distance he walks. That is, if the hiker climbs from zero elevation to 1,000 feet in elevation twice within that three-mile stretch of hiking, his total ascent is 2,000 feet (610 metres) and his time for that stretch of the trek will be increased by one full hour, not one half hour. Thus, Naismith’s Rule says that it will take that hiker two hours to walk that three-mile distance at a speed of just 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometres) per hour.
    Although the travel time and route for Lillian’s journey across the Prairies as given in Cooper’s article are perfectly reasonable, I was unable to confirm any of the details he stated. I made two requests to the RCMP for access to information on her presence in Wakaw that summer and all other points mentioned in Cooper’s article but they turned up nothing, and I found no corroborating information in museums, archives or microfilmed newspapers.
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    It is possible that Lillian did walk from Pouce Coupe to Hazelton, but the route was by no means easy at that time. There were no highways in northern BC. Between Grande Prairie and Pouce Coupe there was a country road that farmers and other country folk used to travel between the two provinces. From there old pack trails existed that had evolved from the original First Nations trails. If Lillian made it through the Peace River area, then she could have used the northern fur trade routes to get to Fort St. James, from which pack trails led directly to Hazelton, her next known stop. This route also had the advantage of ferries across the larger lakes.
    R.G. Harvey, former deputy minister of Highways for British Columbia and an expert on early travel routes in the province, agrees that “if she came through Pine Pass [which today is the route of the John Hart Highway (#97)] in 1927, she must