Trappers & Trailblazers

In 1934 international entrepreneur and filmmaker Charles Bedeaux hired a team of Canadian men to trail blaze from Edmonton, Alberta, to Telegraph Creek, BC. What started out as adventure for Carl Davidson and Bob Beattie soon became a treacherous and heartbreaking journey. While Bedeaux hob-nobbed with Europe's elite in Paris, Beattie and Davidson suffered impossible challenges and near starvation in BC's harshest country. After five years of misadventure and virtually no communication from Bedeaux, Beattie and Davidson were informed that the mission had been called off, just before Bedeaux was arrrested for espionage. The ill-fated trip is just one of many stories gleaned from the memories of pioneers who settled the interior of British Columbia during the first half of the twentieth century. Hardships and misfortune were the norm, but as Boudreau discovers, many possessed an intangible mettle and a sense of humour that saw them through rough times. In Trappers and Trailblazers Boudreau has preserved stories in danger of disappearing, and his extraordinary research has also uncovered a collection of intriguing and previously unpublished photographs.