The Weaker Sex

In last week’s Chronicles the late Ozzie Hutchings, machinist and liquor store clerk by trade, told the suspenseful tale of Old Growler, the ‘Phantom of the Unuk.’

Ozzie, retired when I met him in 1970, was an historian by choice and a born storyteller. I’m blessed to have his files and 100s of photos of the ghost town of Anyox and of Stewart, B.C.

With my help in the early ‘70s Ozzie wrote a series of articles for the weekend magazine section of The Daily Colonist, telling of the mining activity in the province’s northwestern corner and the colourful characters he’d met before moving to Victoria where he eventually retired after years with the B.C. Liquor Control Board.

I also published a couple of his articles in Canada West magazine when I was its co-owner and editor.

One of his best stories is that of Anna Ullman, a young woman who unwittingly took a page from the legendary solo trek of Lillian Alling, overland through B.C. and Alaska to Siberia. (Another story for another time.)

Anna wasn’t quite so ambitious; she merely set out to hike the abandoned Collins Overland Telegraph line from Hazelton to Telegraph Creek in 1932.

Her yen “to see what she could of the country and its people” almost cost her her life. Foolish she may have been, but no one questioned her courage when they heard her incredible story while she was recuperating in hospital.

Next week, guest columnist Ozzie Hutchings will tell you of the amazing Anna Ullman.

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PHOTO: A matched team of horses hauling a wagon on the main street of Stewart, B.C., 1911. It was still wilderness country, 20 years later, when young Anna Ullman set out on the overland hike that would almost cost her her life. —Courtesy Ozzie Hutchings