Whitehorse Star, 1927

The Mystery Woman Lillian Ailing...

Part 2 of 3

The little trekker served her sentence, less 10 days for good behavior, and worked through the winter in the kitchen of a Vancouver restaurant.

In the spring of 1928, with the melting snows rushing down the mountains, she continued her journey. By June, she had returned to Smithers. "Did you get rides?" the police asked her. "I walked all the way," she said "I tell you the truth," "I do not tell lies." It was estimated she'd walked between 50 and 65 kms a day.

Afraid that she would be arrested again, Lillian begged officials to let her go on. When they pointed out that there would be nothing to eat on that leg of her journey, she responded: "I eat anything, leaves, berries, grass. I must go on."

Police decided there were no legal reasons for holding her, and she did have two-maybe three-months of fair weather ahead. Sgt. Andrew Fairbairn of the local B.C. Provincial Police detachment made his decision. Towering over Lillian's tiny figure, he told her: "I'll let you go on one condition - that you report to every cabin along the telegraph line until you reach Telegraph Creek."

"I will," promised the diminutive hiker, picking up her back pack and heading northward into the bush. Telegraphers in the Second, Fourth, Sixth and Eighth cabins were wired to watch for her (the odd-numbered cabins by then were used only as refuges).

She called in at cabins Two, Four, and Six in astonishing time, bursting into Cabin Eight a full day before the two telegraphers there, Jim Christie and Charlie Janze, had planned to go out looking for her. And it was obvious that her quest was taking its toll on Lillian, for the bushmen were appalled at the sight they saw.

As she sank to the ground with exhaustion, they noted her face was swollen and pockmarked with insect bites, her clothes and shoes in shreds, her hair matted from wind and rain. And boy, was she hungry! But her spirit was as strong as ever, her resolve to reach Siberia undaunted. And unlike those she had encountered before, Christie and Janze found her talkative - although this may have been more from delirium than demeanor.

Fed and rested after three days at the cabin, the strange little woman with the iron will said she was ready to continue her journey, and Jim and Charlie befriended her in ways typical to the North.

Janze the smaller of the two men, gave her a new kerchief to replace the torn scarf she always wore around her head. Then Jim Christie gave her a gift she seemed to cherish most - his black and white dog Bruno.

Christie sent a message to the next manned cabin along the telegraph line and set off to escort his mysterious visitor over the 8,000 foot (2,400 metre) Summit Pass. Little did they know as they waved goodbye to Janze that tragedy was waiting up in the silent wasteland.

As the odd-looking couple headed off for Cabin Nine, Lillian taking two quick steps for each of Jim's loping strides, Drysdale "Scotty" Ogilvie was setting out from Echo Lake Cabin (it would have been Cabin 10 if it were numbered) to meet them. He would never make the rendezvous.

Scotty was a robust man who enjoyed life in the bush. His Scottish ballads were a stalking through the bush, his laugh filled everyone with rejoicing. His singing would have stopped when he'd come in earshot of the Ningunsaw River, now overwhelming the silence with its roaring floodwaters.

By his tracks, it is known he checked the cable for the usual river-crossing, now submerged in the torrent. The alternative was to find a safer place to cross.

When Scotty failed to turn up at Cabin Nine, Christie became worried. When he failed to report to Echo Lake, Scotty's colleague Cyril Tooley, became worried. Both telegraphers set out on a search and met at the river. They found the Scotsman's two howling huskies, then they saw his tracks end where the river bank had collapsed into the foaming rapids.

Scotty's body was found facedown a quarter of mile downstream, pressed against a cottonwood tree. Christie broke the news to Lillian back at Cabin Nine. It was the first time she'd shown any emotion. Her dark eyes filled with tears. This man, this stranger, had died trying to help her. There was nothing she could give in return.

Moving onward, ever northward, she stopped 11 kilometers from Echo Lake, at a clearing marked with a mound of freshly turned earth. With tears running silently down her cheeks, she went into the bush and picked a handful of wild flowers. Then, her lips moving in an unsaid prayer, she kneeled and placed them gently on the grave, made the sign of the cross, and passed that place forever as she walked on into the trees.

Lillian's next reported stop was Atlin, near the B.C. Yukon border. And there, her strange tale became even more strange. Inhabitants rushed to see the unusual sight of the little figure walking into town from the wilderness-with the hide of her dog, lightly stuffed with grass, spread out on her backpack.

In reply to a local hotel keeper's curious question about the hide, she said, tersely: "He was my only friend. He will always remain with me."

It's known that Lillian Ailing reached Dawson City in the Yukon in October, 1928, about 20 months after leaving the teeming streets of New York. There, she worked as a waitress, lived alone, avoided relationships and spent the winter repairing a small rowboat that she'd bought.

Said the Whitehorse Star on Oct. 19 that year: "From the time of the first account of the Mystery Woman in the Whitehorse Star, the people of Dawson have been looking forward with an unusual degree of curiosity for her arrival there."

"At Carmacks, she made some meager purchases and continued her journey; at Yukon Crossing, H.O. Lokken put her over the river in a small boat; at Pelly Crossing, A. Shafer performed a similar service for her; at Stewart, T.A. Dickson's survey party was camped and the boys cared for her, for three days during a bad storm, and from this point she went down the river in a small boat to Dawson, arriving there on the morning of Oct. 5."

"She left Whitehorse on the morning of Aug. 28 and as far as is known, the only provision she had was a loaf of bread, which she had cut in three pieces as she said she was not carrying a knife."

"Thirty-nine days were spent between here and Dawson, and practically all the time she must have slept in the open. Upon reaching Dawson, she had a different style of men's shoes on each foot."

At break-up in the spring of 1929, Lillian Ailing was seen loading her flimsy craft with provisions and a blanket roll and setting off down the mighty Yukon River into the barren vastness of the Arctic. She still had a 2,600 kilometer journey to the Bering Sea.

It is recorded that she reached the mouth of the river, left her boat on the beach and trudged overland toward Bering Strait. Months later, an Eskimo reported seeing a woman beyond Teller, a coastal point near where Alaska and Siberia are closest. She was pulling a small, two-wheel cart.