ODDS’N’SODS — Northern `Diamond Queen’ (2)

Editor’s note: The author concludes his stories about Sophie May Ryan, dubbed “the North’s fabulous Diamond Queen” in a 1952 obituary in a weekly newspaper in The Pas, Man.

The Diamond Queen ran the roadhouse while Gilbert Lacroix operated a livery service to Herb Lake. The roadhouse became a popular stopping place for Herb, miners and prospectors. The Queen turned out to be a first-call cook and when there was a demand for fresh milk, she decided to go into the dairy business. On her next trip to The Pas, she contacted local butcher Ed Snieff, who told her he had just the cow she wanted. “When will she freshen?” he was asked. “She will be dropping her calf in about a month,” was the reply. A deal was made and the cow was shipped to Mile 82. A month went by with no sign of the calf. Two months, and still no calf arrived. After three months, the Diamond Queen realized she had been sold a barren cow, so she headed back to The Pas to confront the butcher. When she met Snieff outside the Bank of Commerce, she pulled a horse whip out of her bag and began thrashing him. He took off down the street yelping with pain, pursued by the Queen who was screaming, “She wasn’t pregnant! I want my money back!”

The Diamond Queen had a host of friends, though promoter Joseph Myers was not one of them. Myers had taken a group of politicians and businessmen on a visit to the Bingo mine at Herb Lake, which was being touted as “the new eldorado.” (He was later charged with salting the Bingo, but that is a different story.)

The group had to stay overnight at Mile 82, so Myers peremptorily told the Queen to evict the miners and prospectors who were occupying the sleeping quarters. She flatly refused, and gave Myers two alternatives. They could bunk in her overflow facility — an abandoned box car formerly used by the notorious Box Car Annie as an operating base for the practice of the world’s oldest profession — or they could sleep under the spruce trees. They chose the box car but were kept awake all night by a hungry bear snuffling around outside.

Myers swore to get even. He told the divisional superintendent of the Hudson Bay Railway at The Pas that he would be opening a large mine at Herb Lake, and he asked to have a switch and siding put in at Mile 81, calling it Wekusko Station. That left the trains rattling right by the Queen’s place. Yet it was not as disastrous as Myers had hoped; her customers did not object to walking the extra mile to get a good meal and have a comfortable bed. The Diamond Queen narrowly missed being portrayed on the black-and-white movie screen of the 1930s. Peter Freuchen, Danish Arctic explorer and author, was in The Pas in 1925 making plans for an expedition in the Hudson Bay area. He either met the Queen or was told the story of her life. When he was in Hollywood some years later, he was introduced to the glamorous actress, Mae West. She was fascinated by the saga of the Diamond Queen, so Freuchen offered to write a scenario about her.

West said there was one problem; her astrologer had warned her that her next film must have an Alaskan locale or it would be a flop. Taking advantage of artistic licence, Freuchen wrote a script which pictured the Diamond Queen as a Skagway demimondaine. Mae West loved the plot, but her manager strongly objected to her playing the part; he felt she was being typecast and that the time had come to switch to the role of a refined society lady. The manager won the argument and the production was shelved.

After the death of Lacroix in 1948, the Diamond Queen lived alone at Mile 82. One of her few surviving photographs shows a petite, white-haired woman seated in a rocking chair outside her home. She still retained much of her youthful beauty. She stubbornly refused to move to The Pas until April, 1952, when she entered hospital for treatment of a recurring heart condition. Her sometimes lurid past was forgotten . . . other patients thought she was a very nice lady.

— George Reynolds resides in Winnipeg, Man.