The Woman Who Walked to Russia: A Writer's Search for a Lost Legend

by Cassandra Pybus

From the moment Cassandra Pybus first heard about Lillian Alling’s trek across North America, she couldn’t get the story out of her mind. This is how it Desperate with homesickness, Lillian Alling, a recent immigrant to the United States from the Soviet Union, haunted the New York Public Library, studying the atlas to establish the most direct route home to her native Russia. Her English was poor but she understood the hieroglyphics of cartography. In the spring of 1927, aided only by a hand-drawn map, she started to walk home. Pybus searched for clues about this enigmatic pedestrian. When her historical sleuthing yielded little, she set out on her own trek to trace Lillian’s route through the wilderness of northwestern Canada and subarctic Alaska and Siberia. The result is an entertaining travel narrative that pieces together Alling’s journey through the natural beauty and rich history of northwestern North America — a story never before told.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, History, Biography

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Cassandra Pybus is ARC Professorial Fellow in the School of History and Classics at the University of Tasmania. She is the author of many books including Community of Thieves and The Devil and James McAuley, winner of the 2000 Adelaide Festival Award for non-fiction.

Reviews

[Kt]

This book was billed, on the back cover, as two stories: the story of a Russian woman who missed her home and wanted to walk back from NYC, and the "Thelma & Louise" (the book's words) story of two friends adventuring in the far Pacific Northwest.

After reading it, though, I feel like I didn't get enough of either story, and that both stories presented were far different than the advertisement on the back of the book. The only true things from the information about the lone woman trekking across North America, for example, seem to be that she was a woman & that she was trekking alone. The only thing "Thelma and Louise"-ish about the writer and her friend is that they drove together in a car in the rural backlands of Western Canada. And neither story had a very strong ending. Infact, the ending of the book focuses mainly on the writer's enjoyment of coming home after her long journey. After pages and pages of detailed information about the writer's strong draw toward Lillian's story, her initial fascination, her research leading to dead ends, her need to pick up the story again, to have the story finish with a happy ending about the writer and her own husband is a little jarring.

Another problem is the writer's description of the "Thelma and Louise" roadtrip. The themes of this sub-story, aging, feminism, body image, friendships that change over time, have very little connection to the story of Lillian. The main problem, then, comes from the fact that this sub-story became the thrust of a large section of the book. This being the case, I was a little confused about the main point of the book. Where was Ms. Pybus trying to take the reader, and what points was she trying to make? Also, if she wanted to focus so much on this dying friendship, why is there no mention of Gerry, her friend, after they separate. I would like to know what became of Gerry after her story with the writer finished. The writer may have left Gerry with good riddance, but we as the readers, who don't have such a strong history with Gerry, may be interested in where she moved on to later.

Overall, I think this book is a case of good idea, poor execution. I enjoy travel writing immensely, especially when it is focused around historical events, a great example being "Colour" by Victoria Finlay. However, Ms. Pybus' writing should have been more focused. The two stories in it are intersting and deserve to be told, but perhaps they should have been told separately.

[Halli]

I was disappointed with the book, if the author had made a story of a quest located in a beautiful location (BC, Yukon Territory and Alaska) it would be a beautiful work.

Instead I read a bitter, friendship destroying, bleeding heart criticism of the way of life in a difficult land.

Her friend Gerry, who accompanies her on the trip is made out to be a one-sided, junk food eating monster, who, even after she leaves the book, is criticized for being who she is. The criticisms are so clear and bitter, gosh Cassandra, no wonder YOU didn't enjoy spending time with Gerry. I can't help but think that I wouldn't get along with your self-righteous, "holier-than-thou" ass either.

Pg. 160:

"The trip was always going to be determined by my priorities and shaped by my intellectual concerns, by my compulsive need to share my research. I was quite the wrong kind of person to be traveling with a woman desperate to be on the underside of forty. For Gerry to find herself with a travel companion who was over fifty, unconcerned about her body image and unable to resist turning everything into an object lesson, must have been more than she could bear.

Too bad for Gerry.

I actually LIKE being over fifty."

Yay, good for you Cassandra! Congratulations on your age, all of the places that you have traveled to and the things that you have experienced. Obviously you are your own unique snowflake.

The author's general distaste for all hunters, regardless of media, is clearly ignorant. State (small and large) laws have been thought out, there is a process, clearly there are regulations and departments of fish and wildlife know their numbers and that clearly the "circle of life" needs to happen. Such odd remarks in this book.

Pg. 208; in regard to the hunters in Alaska:

"Many have wives standing guard beside the empty pickup, gun in hand. We pass one woman on her knees, probably praying that her husband can bag them a moose. America is a deeply religious country."

Huh.

Pybus, two things. One, an American Marine Officer is ALWAYS a Marine, regardless if they are actively separated or not and the Marine corp in the states is NOT the US Army.

If Americans have difficulty making such a distinction, then an Australian who thinks extremely highly of herself wouldn't either. Whoops, there goes a good amount of research.

So, after all is said and done, my last bit is with the author's clear boredom with her subject. After tying the loose ends together, she arrives home in Australia, happy to see her husband again but without finding any descendants.

Good on ya Cass, way to see it through to the end.

[Rob]

If the title had been more honest, I would have been less frustrated with this book. She could have called it: "The Two Old Friends who argued almost continually on an ill-founded roadtrip from southern BC to Alaska." If you read the back cover, you will learn most of the story of the actual woman who walked to Russia. The book itself reveals little other detail about her. Rather, you learn about immigration to New York, the men who staff the telegraph line through the wilds of British Columbia, life during the gold rush in Yukon, and the sour relationship between the author and her old friend. The former three subjects are interesting and are the parts of the book worth reading. The latter is extremely tedious. I don't understand how or why the editor let this book be published as it is.

[Garrett Zecker]

I really, really wanted to read this book and learn about Lilian Ailing. I really wanted to like it.

I was not a fan of this book. At all. In fact, I am not even sure I could tell you what it was about... but not in that way where you are really excited and can't explain it. I can't tell you what it was about in a bad way. Pybus' book is advertised as an exciting adventure meant to show a writer on the heels of the enigmatic Lilian Ailing – it isn't. It is also billed as a wilderness travelogue that shows the wild northeast while following a ragtag Thelma and Louise on their journey. Nope, not that either. A research or nature book? Not really. A historical study? Not quite. Well written without any grammatical errors? Where do I start?

The book isn't about Ailing. The book is mainly about how she can't find anything on her, and then she speculates and makes up a story. The most concrete thing happens in the last five pages. In terms of Thelma and Louise, not even close. The relationship between Pybus and her companion only lasts a portion of the book, and eventually Pybus begins to criticize her eating habits, weight, the difference in how they look at their ages... in fact, there was so much complaining about such incidental, surface, gossipy things, that it was actually an insult to Thelma, Louise, and the women's movement in general. Pybus came off as simply a bad person that no one would want to travel with – and of course, her friend leaves. There is a lot of historical and nature writing in the book – but much of it lacks organization and purpose. She jumps from one topic to the next without a thread of commonality that I could follow. When something interesting would come up, it would change, and change again by the end of the page, and it felt like a list of facts or natural observations that were just... a list. The most frustrating parts of the book were when Pybus would be at the library or interviewing someone, explain the process in extreme detail, and then after a couple pages you learn she didn't learn anything. Finally, the writing. There was a lot wrong. A taste: "...a seventy-three-year-old who climbs to the top of a thirty-metre tower and sets herself on fire before diving two metres of water covered in flames." There are so many glaring proofreading errors, I am embarrassed for it.

One portion of the book that sums it up. In response to something she read about one of the few articles on Ailing, she criticizes the writer by noting it "sounds like a desperate journalist's guesswork to me." If anything, Pybus sure knows it when she sees it.

[Pegi Eyers]

Well this book was not what I expected! Pybus has done an excellent job of weaving together very scanty records on a mysterious woman who walked though the B.C. wilderness circa 1927, and there are beautiful passages of exemplary nature writing. However, her lack of knowledge on dire colonial realities shows up in some commentary that centers on the "white imperialist gaze." It's not a lot of catch-up to become informed on Settler-Colonialism these days, and to reach a better threshold of credibility and understanding. Also, the subtexts running through the book - the environmental devastation happening in western Canada and why contemporary women are driven to conform to unrealistic body image - in many ways become the real story. At the cliffhanger ending, Pybus comes to some conclusions on "Lillian Alling" (her real name?) which brings a sense of closure to a fascinating and epic journey.

[Gail Sherley]

I enjoyed reading about the corner of BC/Yukon/Alaska that is so truly breathtaking and inhospitable. I felt I had been duped by the title, this is a road trip gone bad. I had little interest in the food issues, it just detracted from the story, the author had nothing to gain by her negativity towards her companion. I would love to hear Gerri’s side of this trip. I have made trips with companions that had habits I found annoying, but for a few weeks you can put up with most of them. I don’t feel it ever adds value to focus on that instead of the adventure taken. The book did not live up to my expectation. Glad I paid second hand price. Got my $5 worth.

[Kathleen McRae]

I liked this book and I think it did describe the north in all its glory and beauty and its hard side. The north is a hostile environment despite its beauty.I found Lilian's story interesting although light on factual details and that does not surprise me. she lived in a time when women were not an interesting topic to the only reader that was valued and that was men so Lilian's tale became like much of female history......unrecorded.

[Christine D]

This book was a huge disappointment. Although the author proclaims that any resemblance to a real person is coincidental, there was indeed a Lillian Alling whose story is inspiring and something of a mystery. She was brave, resolute and tough, and the character Pybus describes bears no resemblance to real Lillian Alling. I was personally offended at many of the book character's exploits.

[Shelby Arnette]

The description of this book was super misleading as it wasn’t really about Lillian Alling. However, I still really enjoyed it as a travel narrative. The author did a good job weaving her musings about Lillian to her journey through Northern Canada and Alaska. Read it super quickly if that means anything!

[Jan Morrison]

It was interesting enough, but what is with these adventurous writers who go into the wild with neurotic junk food addicts?

[Geoff Young]

This book purports to be about the search for Lillian Alling, a mysterious woman who roamed the Canadian wilderness in the 1920s. When the author's research efforts (more about those later) yield few answers, she embarks on her own journey to British Columbia and Yukon to seek the truth.

The premise is fascinating. There is a mystery (who is Lillian Alling, and why did she trek across such remote and unforgiving lands?) and the promise of an adventurous road trip. In capable hands, this could have been enjoyable or at least not dreadful.

* * *

The first part of the book deals with the initial inquiry, which reveals interesting information that may or may not be accurate (given what transpires later, there is reason to be skeptical of even her most trivial claims). It's compelling enough to move the narrative forward and keep the reader hooked.

Even at this stage, though, there are warning flags that are easily dismissed but that make sense on seeing the bigger picture. The author bemoans spending eight hours (eight whole hours!) searching for something and finding nothing, and calls another day chasing dead ends "wasted."

She mocks the suggestion that she go to Ottawa when told that information she seeks can be found there. Much later she blames a historical society volunteer who "failed to tell me what this source was or where it might be found." No, you failed to ask her. You're the researcher, you do the work. Don't like it? Find another job.

* * *

The second part of the book recounts the journey through remote parts of Western Canada that the author shares with an old friend, who chauffeurs her along roads of varying quality. The author spends most of her time fixating on food, complaining about coffee, ignoring the unique opportunity that life has presented, berating her friend for not being a stick in the mud, and generally being unpleasant.

When the tension between the author and her friend reaches its boiling point, it's almost impossible to root for the author, which is unfortunate because she's the one we're stuck with for the duration.

As for her writing style, she is adept at finding synonyms for colors and spinning cliches. She uses words like "picturesque" and "quaint" without apparent irony. She makes sweeping generalizations about topics she knows nothing about ("America is a deeply religious country" because she has declared it to be so) and cannot be bothered to learn.

* * *

The third part largely abandons her quest for information about Lillian Alling and veers off into tangents on Jack London, Jon Krakauer, and other skilled writers the author seems to admire. Mercifully she quotes liberally from these, which provides brief respite from her own words.

In the end, this book is undermined by shoddy fact checking (among other sins, she calls an event that occurs in Canada an "archetypal American tragedy" and attributes a famous Hemingway quote to Fitzgerald), a narrator full of self-pity and arrogance whose lack of curiosity in the actual world around her (as opposed to the books she quotes) suggests that she should never leave home (to be fair, in a rare moment of enlightenment, she comes to realize this last point).

The entire work reads like a parody of the genre. Filled with purple prose, trite observations, and little in the way of insight, it is nothing so much as an example of how not to write a memoir.

Her mistaken attribution of the Hemingway quote occurs on the book's final page and in a way provides a fitting conclusion. While watching the rising sun (!) she recalls the line "Isn't it pretty to think so" and says she thinks (but doesn't verify) it's from The Great Gatsby. It's an almost perfect illustration of everything that is wrong with this book.

Of course, if this was actual parody that went over my head, then my hat goes off to the author. Well done!

[Bri]

In 1929, a lone immigrant woman by the name of Lillian Alling was encountered in remote northern British Columbia, attempting to make her way back to native Siberia by foot. Why? How? The premise that Pybus paints is compelling, ripe with the promise of adventure and mystery.

Unfortunately, it's never delivered.

One thing strikes the reader, as they settle in to this long-winded and tedious account: Pybus, who holds a PHD in history, is a shockingly poor researcher. Lacking the patience to wait for more solid evidence, with just shreds of proof she embarks on what she believes to be the most likely route this mysterious pilgrim followed (in the comfort of a chauffeured SUV, of course). When she fails to uncover any other evidence en route, credible or otherwise, she relies on reality-television tactics to fill her pages-- she complains endlessly about the nutrition choices of her driving companion, and is sure to allude to th differences between her, a married and worldly academian with this single adventurous woman. She describes her own gourmet meals in frequent and ridiculous detail, and pages later bemoans her body image before projecting them onto her driver herself. When her driver at last has the good sense to abandon her near the Arctic Circle, Pybus resorts to quoting long passages from Jack London and Jon Krakauer as a means to fill her pages. Between inane commentary on food, self-important rambling drivel and pitiful stereotypical reconstruction of Canadian and American personalities, the amount of the book concerning itself with the actual trail of Lillian Alling could be summed up in pages. If you would like to read an accurate account of this plucky woman, you're better off reading a dated article from the British Columbia newspapers, lifted in its entirety in the last two pages of this novel.

[Joel]

In 1927/1928, a Russian/Polish woman called Lillian Alling travelled on foot through the wilds of British Columbia and the Yukon Territory; reportedly trying to return to Russia via Alaska and Siberia. Her travels attracted attention and curiosity from the locals, but in the end her trail was lost to history. This book recounts Pybus' efforts to learn more, and her own modern trek through the region- not on foot- seeking insight.

Ultimately Pybus never does track down any firm information about Alling's background or ultimate fate; although she does, at the end of the book, come across a tantalizing clue that she may have married and lived out her life in Alaska. With her investigations stymied at every turn, the book (at least the first two-thirds of it) becomes primarily a chronicle of Pybus' deteriorating relationship with her traveling companion; an old friend named Gerry, whom she had shared adventures with 20 years earlier, and had recently been reunited with. But she is now forced to come to the conclusion that the two of them are no longer compatible as friends or traveling companions. One sympathizes with the pain of lost friendship, but I did not find it compelling reading.

Pybus occasionally provides hints of what could have been a much better book. The area she travels through is the land of the famed Klondike Gold Rush, and as she tells us about the land and its hardships she occasionally recounts stories of the people who flocked to the Yukon in those days; an interesting topic, which whetted my appetite for more. I found myself wishing that this had been the focus of the book, with the story of Lillian Alling perhaps relegated to a single chapter, and the portions about the author's souring friendship excised entirely.

But that's not the book Pybus actually wrote. As is, it was a bit of a disappointment.

[Jessica]

Cassandra, the author of this book, is searching for a woman who supposedly tried to walk to Russia in the 1920s. I picked up this book because I thought at least it would be a good travel journal since she was searching in a beautiful area of this world for clues to this woman's life. Unfortunately, the author had what seemed such a miserable time and found so little evidence on her subject that the book dragged on while Cassandra filled it up with random side stories. She is a historian so the side stories were about things that happened in the past. I may have found it more interesting if she spoke more about the natural wonders of the area, or if she had gone hiking more. Reading about someone driving around, eating, having a passive-aggressive relationship with her travel partner, being disappointed at not finding information... on and on... this wasn't a very exciting story for me. I can't completely blame the author though. She was persistent and found a lot more information on her subject than I would have and would have had a better book if there was more information there to start with. It was a good idea, but it just ended up being tedious.

[Sean Toohey]

I enjoyed this book immensely. The narrator has strong and particular points of view on everything, but it's great to follow someone with such a strong point of view and singularity of purpose. She is very critical of her traveling companion, Gerry, and it's sometimes unpleasant but again I appreciate the person I'm following for the length of a book is not simply shrugging at circumstances.

She characterizes vast places in a generalized way ("America is a deeply religious place," she writes, regarding her seeing a hunter's wife kneeling by a pickup, rifle nearby, and praying). That's not necessarily a criticism, could simply be an observation, but it shows a minimizing naivete about America. Or a willingness to generalize and move on. This and a few other moments were irritating but not enough to distract from what is a detective/adventure story, with scads of far north history, both of the land and indigenous people.

Her passion for the land, the people, their history and their present are invigorating. And sometimes these passions aid her in attempting to track her mysterious quarry: a woman who walked across sub-arctic Canada and Alaska to...well, read it.

[Stephanie]

I was intrigued by the title and there were some parts of this book that I found interesting - the descriptions of the landscape and the stories of the people they meet are great - but overall I was frustrated by this book.

The story of Lillian ("the woman who walked to Russia") turns out to be a non-story, really. The author's telling of her research and her imagined stories were interesting, though.

The other aspect of the book, the so-called "Thelma and Louise" aspect - was uneven. Thelma and Louise at least liked each other - I got no such impression about Cassandra (the author) and Gerry (her long-lost friend and driver). And the lack of resolution about what happened to Gerry after she and Cassandra went their separate ways (without even a footnote or an afterword) sucked.

Also, the map in the front of the book was next to useless when the author was naming places and describing them, I wanted to know where they were - and most of them were not on the map! (As well, the map has notations in its legend that appear NOWHERE on the map in question. Frustrating.)

[David Roe]

This book had some potential failed to deliver because was so little documented information on the subject, Lillian Alling, that it was really a non-story. Ninety percent of the book covers the author's travel through Alaska and her relationship dynamic with her traveling companion. There were way too many dead-ends and assumptions made in regards to the route Alling took and towns that she may have stopped in.

[Laura Lee]

I like a good research mystery and historical eccentrics. I also like a good entertaining travel narrative like Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods. This combines all of those things, but focused a bit too much on the author's own travel habits. I would have liked it more if it put more of its focus on the search for the woman who walked to Russia.

[Janette Mcmahon]

If this book had had a different title, one that did not mislead, it would have been nice. While I did enjoy the travels of the writer while researching the book, I expected more of Lillian's story versus the research travel. this book read like a travelogue and while it wasn't what I expected I still enjoyed it.

[Melissa Combs]

Disappointing. Very little information about Lillian Alling herself. Mostly just a whiny diatribe against almost everything - - America, Canada, her friends, junk food. Obviously the author is far too narcissistic to write about someone else, it all has to come back to her. If you are interested in Lillian Alling, you won't find much here.

[YoSafBridg]

Basically a travel narrative which follows an Austraulian woman and her travel campanian across the US and Canadian countryside following the "tracks" of a Russian woman she had heard had walked back to Russia because she was homesick. A very interesting read.

[Betty McMahon]

Very good descriptions of Canadian northwest.. She is a very good travel writer--if anyone would travel there! Interesting mystery too, of woman who walked over impossibly difficult terrain in the 1920s and the search for her story.

[Onconerka]

I picked this book up at a thrift store. I'm happy it was only $0.25. I didn't like reading about the deteriorating friendship, the bitterness. The most informative part of the walk was the article from a 1973 paper. I'd skip the rest.

[Marie]

"It sounded interesting, but it just didn't do it for me."

[Alice Paterra]

The book was good when we we're following the subject. But occasionally we get lost in the author's own wanderings. A fiction book, "Away" is based on this story, but not as well told.

[Elly Sands]

I'm glad I only paid 99 cents for this book. I don't mean to sound unkind but it was just plain dull.

[Allan]

I was disappointed in this book. A thin narrative about the main subject compounded by a good reason why many travellers travel alone.

[Darleen]

Not that well done.

[Irina]

Wish there was a way to give two and half stars - interesting story of the woman, but I found the author annoying

[Deb]

Loved it. Great travel read but also really good description of being in an abusive friendship. Wow.