NEW CANADIAN TRAILS

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 August 1934, Page 12

NEW CANADIAN TRAILS

CAR PIONEERING IS UNKNOWN. From Paris comes the news that three women are to brave the perils of the uncharted tracts of Canada’s “Wild W T est” as members of a motor expedition, which plans this summer to cross desolate regions of British Columbia which have hitherto only been crossed by dog sled or on horseback. The expedition is under the leadership of a French engineer, M. Charles Bedaux. The members will include Madame Bedaux and two other women, a geologist (Mr. John Pocock), two geographers, two cinema operators, a wireless operator, and a mechanic. Mr. Bedaux has already surveyed the area on horseback. His goal is the Cassiar mountains, a wild region in the Klondyke district, where ten months’ Arctic winter alternate with two months of torrid summer. The soil which the expedition will have to cross is a shifting peat known as “muskeg.” The expedition • will consist of five Citroen caterpillarwheeled cars, following the recent “Black Cruise” in Africa and “Yellow Cruise” in Asia. M. Bedaux s venture is being styled the White Cruise.” . Extensive preparations are being made for the trip, and M. Bedaux’s plans even provide for hauling cars weighing two tons up vertical rock faces 500 ft. in height, by means of a special system of windlasses which he has invented. Where rough ground or sodden soil would otherwise make advance impossible a portable roadway of metal srtips will be unrolled in front of the cars. , M. Bedaux’s aim is to trace a roadway across the uncharted wastes. An aerial survey of tile region will be made, and already woodcutters aie working on a track throng the better known part of the district. Starting from Edmonton, the expedition will make its way along this track to Fort St. John, on the edge of the unknown. Here a supply dump is being formed with. stores carried by canoe. Beyond Fort St. John lie 1,250 miles of unexplored waste. _ M. Bedaux hopes to make his trip to Telegraph Creek, on the westernslopes of the Rockies, by September 15, but in case of accident he has signed a contract with a Pacific Coast. Air Line to send out a. rescue plane. This machine would have to be a seaplane, as the only possible landings are on lakes.