Mar 31, 2014
In 1926, a woman named Lillian Alling grew disenchanted with her
life as a maid in New York City and resolved to return to her
native Russia. She lacked the funds to sail east, so instead she
walked west -- trekking 6,000 miles alone across the breadth of
Canada and into Alaska. In this week's episode of the Futility
Closet podcast, we'll consider Alling's lonely, determined journey,
compare it to the efforts of other long-distance pedestrians, and
suggest a tool to plot your own virtual journey across the United
States.
We'll also learn the truth about the balloon-borne messenger dogs
of 1870 Paris, ponder the significance of October 4 to Samuel
Taylor Coleridge, and offer a chance to win a book in the next
Futility Closet Challenge.