Croisière blanche

When the Alaska Highway was built in the 1940s, a Fort St. John man discovered the remains of these last two half-tracks and one was donated to the Western Development Museum in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

[1] Bedaux set off on this unusual excursion accompanied by more than a hundred people, including his wife, his mistress (an Italian Countess), and an Academy Award-winning film director from Hollywood, Floyd Crosby, who would later be praised for his work on High Noon.

From there, Bedaux had planned for the expedition to cross over the Sifton Pass, to Dease Lake and the Stikine River to Telegraph Creek, and ultimately the Pacific Ocean.

[2] After enjoying a champagne breakfast hosted by Edmonton's elite and parading down Jasper Avenue, the expedition was formally sent off by Alberta's Lieutenant Governor.

Despite the weather and poor road conditions, they made good progress and by July 12 they left Grande Prairie and on the 17th were in British Columbia on the trail from Taylor to Fort St, John.

Nevertheless, Bedaux's plan worked and Canadian and American newspapers carried the news that three of the cars had been lost and that some of the expedition members had barely escaped death in these terrible "accidents".

[4] The radio-drama implied some shady ulterior motive for Bedaux's excursion into northern BC and the Far North, making reference to the fact that he had come to the same area previously, in 1926 and 1931.