Charles Eugene Bedaux

This French-American character was right out of a dime novel.

In his less than 60 years he was everything from dishwasher, pimp and Foreign Legionnaire to the friend of British royalty and the fifth richest man in the U.S.

Yet, for all these achievements, he died, supposedly by his own hand, in a prison cell while awaiting trial for treason.

Something that neither he nor anyone else could have foreseen in 1934, when he came to British Columbia in charge of his grandly named Bedaux Canadian Sub-Arctic Expedition. It was really a promotional tour for Citroen half-track cars, but an incredible tour through virgin wilderness of northern B.C. all the same.

The saga of the Bedaux overland expedition in next week’s Chronicles.

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PHOTO: Rich adventurer Charles Bedaux, left, watches as a film crew documents his overland expedition in northern B.C. —Frank Swannell photo, BC Archives