that was built to connect Whitehorse and Dawson in 1902 was actually more trail than road, and it was divided into five separate sections by the Takhini, Yukon, Pelly and Stewart rivers. But by the 1920s, the Yukon government was having difficulty maintaining roads, and this route was in very bad shape.1 Between the poor condition of the road and fewer daylight travelling hours, Lillian’s walking speed was reduced from a high of 30 miles (48 kilometres) per day to a new low of just 10 miles (16 kilometres). It was also much more difficult to find shelter for the night. Laura Berton, in her book I Married the Klondike, described the route at this time: Many of the roadhouses, which in the old days had been spotted every twenty-two miles along the winter road, were closed. Passengers now had to provide their own lunches and these were eaten in the open after being thawed out by a bonfire on the side of the trail.2 When Lillian could not make it to a roadhouse or where there wasn’t one to be found, occasionally she may have come across an abandoned cabin, a few of which were still fully equipped all these years after the Klondike gold rush.
