|
|
Before he arrived in Grand Marais on June 15, 1922, on his quest to walk around the world in hopes of winning $20,000, Charles Burkman was already a Canadian hero.
Burkman drew my attention after a short write-up about his grand attempt appeared last week in the Cook County News- Herald Memory Lane.
So, who was Charles Burkman?
Charles Burkman was born in Port Arthur, Ontario, around 1900. In the winter of 1920-21, Charles found himself alone and out of work in Halifax. Bored and with little to dissuade him, Charles suggested to his friend William Leighton that they should start walking westward, hoping to find a job.
Leighton asked, “How far?” and Burkman replied, “Maybe to Vancouver.”
With that, the two men trooped to the Halifax Herald and Halifax Mail, explaining their plan to traverse Canada on foot, following the CNR tracks to Vancouver.
The newspaper liked the idea and agreed to pay the men for updates on their progress. The reports would be sent by telegraph from railway stations that lay along the route.
However, Leighton would drop out; some say he was more interested in rum-running than walking across Canada. Sid Carr would come on as Charle’s Burckman’s partner. The two would earn their way by selling postcards for 10 cents, a gamble that worked. They would also receive many gifts from people who cheered them on.
Burkman and Leighton would also carry a letter of greeting from the Mayor of Halifax and present it to the Mayor of Vancouver upon their arrival.
And so, the long walk began. The men left the steps of the Halifax city hall on Monday, January 17, 1921. According to the newspaper, the day was dreary; It was raining, foggy, and chilly. Nevertheless, one gentleman begged to let him tag along. He walked about five miles, giving up as he sat down and waved the two adventurers on.
For the first few weeks, the plan was to cover about 15 miles per day and then push it to 30 miles per day when the weather got better in the spring. Then, if all went right, Leighton and Burkman would make it to Vancouver in seven months.
By the third day, the temperature had dropped to ten below. The news reports said they suffered some frostbite but were cheerful. By that nightfall, they had reached Truro, Nova Scotia, totaling sixty four miles in their first three days.
As the men progressed, they received a great deal of attention from newspapers, and townsfolk, attracting crowds and receiving gifts of clothing, socks, shoes, and food.
But the attention they received drew some claims from others who said they could walk the same distance faster than Leighton and Burkman, and before long, the walk became a race.
John Behan, a postman, age 44, who lived across the bay from Halifax in rival town Dartmouth, wrote a letter to the Halifax Herald stating he and his son, Clifford Behan, twenty four, could walk from Halifax to Vancouver in six months, thereby beating Berkman and Carr by one month. The Herald agreed and said they would print stories from the father-son as they made their way across Canada.
They wouldn’t be the only ones to join in. Well-known Maritimes’ walker Frank Dill and his wife, Jennie, joined the chase, and now three teams were heading for the same goal.
With the pressure on, and the two teams closing in on Burkman and Carr, Carr said he wouldn’t be pressured into racing across Canada and withdrew. That left Burkman alone. A group of Halifax sportsmen raised five hundred dollars and gave it to Burkman so he could continue.
On February 15, Burkman arrived in Sherbrooke, Quebec. He had walked 650 miles in twenty-nine days. Now it was a long walk into Canada’s wild country, and by accounts, all of the hikers feared wild animals would attack them, and all had dangerous encounters.
The first came when three wildcats sprung out of the bushes at the Dills. Frank drew his pistol and waited until one crouched and sprang at him. He shot once, wounding it. But when the animal came at him again, he killed it with two more shots. The other cats disappeared.
As for Jennie Dill, she was becoming a huge celebrity, with crowds of people calling her name, and she was the toast of the town with men and women who would come to cheer her on.
At the end of February, Burkman had covered 926 miles in 42 days. The Behan’s walked 859 miles in 34 days, and the Dills covered 577 miles in 27 days. While the Behan’s were in Ottawa, they met the Prime Minister. Leaving Ottawa, they were chased by wolves and suffered terribly from the cold. As for the Dills, it wasn’t animals that almost ended their walk. They were traversing on the railroad track, walking downhill around a bend. They heard a train coming at them just in the nick of time and jumped out of the way. The engineer had been coasting downhill and could not see them going around the curve.
Burkman walked seventy miles in two days, but on March 14, he was overtaken by the Dills. The Dills and Burkman would compete against each other for three days before Burkman gave his rivals the slip, getting a lead at Woman River.
Meanwhile, nothing was heard from the Behan’s. It turned out that they were lost. They had been told a separate railroad track would knock one hundred miles off their route. Instead, the rail line went fifty miles into a logging camp and deadened. So, they walked an extra hundred miles to return to their March 18 point.
As for the Dills, the husband-and-wife team was gaining on Burkman. However, on March 22, a wolf came from behind and sprang at Frank, and Jennie shot it with her revolver. Frank killed it with a shot from his revolver. The Dills continued to make good progress but on March 26, the Behan’s caught up to Burkman at White River. They had each covered 1,497 miles from Halifax.
On a cold evening in King’s Ontario, Burkman left in the middle of the night. It was 11 below, and he thought he had gotten away from the Behan’s. However, Jack Behan caught up to him ten miles down the road, and the two walked together the rest of the day.
The Behan’s would take the lead at the end of March, covering 1,596 miles in 65 days. The Dills had covered 1,310 miles in fifty-eight days.
On April 4, the Behan’s and Burkman were together when a pack of wolves attacked them. The men held off the unruly pack until they found a shack to sleep in; the wolves howled all night.
On April 6, Burkman arrived in Port Arthur, now Thunder Bay. The Behan’s went to Fort William, where a crowd celebrated them.
The trip was halfway done.
Burkman would fall and sprain his hip. The other hikers would be hurt or sick in various ways. In addition, they would be caught in extreme cold, snow, mud, rain, wind and sandstorms.
As the days wore on, the competitors were suffering from fatigue, sore feet, and other ailments, but still they were all driving hard. One day Burkman walked fifty miles in fifteen hours. Jennie Dill and her husband covered 42 miles in one day. On June 12, the Dills walked sixty-one miles in twenty-two hours.
On June 14, the Dills arrived in Vancouver, covering 3,645 miles in 136 days and they were declared the winners. The Behan’s weren’t far behind, and Burkman finished on June 16.
So, what happened to the walkers? In 1928 Frank Dill died in Halifax, and Jennie remarried and died in Halifax in 1941. John Behan and his son came home broke, in debt and had no work. The newspaper never did pay any of the hikers. So, Frank and his wife moved to Arlington, Massachusetts and Clifford to Cambridge, Mass, to look for jobs.
As for Burkman? The article said he had a ticket from Montreal, but it was never used. So, the assumption was that he stayed in Montreal.
However, we know better. Burkman would begin another grander quest. One that if completed would take him by foot across the globe. Sadly, there is no record of how that journey ended. One hundred years after he came here, he walked into our lives again in the Cook County News-Herald Historical section, and when he left Grand Marais June 15, 1922, he walked away into an unknown future.
Information for this article came mainly from a 1956 article called “The great cross-Canada hike” from an issue of Maclean’s publication.
Leave a Reply