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MILE 233 ALASKA HWY |
British Columbia Tourism Region : Northern BC
Description From Owner:
Fontas RiverTuchodi River
- Kwadacha Wilderness Park. This and Mount Bedaux commemorate the Bedaux Sub-Arctic Expedition of 1934.
- That year Charles E. Bedaux, a Franco-American entrepreneur, arrived at Dawson Creek with limousines, loads of baggage, champagne, asbestos tents, rubber pontoons, river boats, horses, axemen and packers, Mrs. Bedaux,
- her maid Josephine, her friend Madarne Chiesa, cameramen, and five Citroen halftrack trucks.
- One of the purposes of the expedition was to demonstrate the versatility of the Citroens by having them travel across the wilderness between Fort St. John and Telegraph Creek.
- Trouble began almost at once with the half-tracks taking up to four hours to travel a quarter of a mile through the gumbo.
- Ninety miles from Fort St. John, the Citroens were abandoned, two of them being driven over a cliff to provide sensational motion picture footage. Continuing by horse, the expedition got as far as Citroen Peak in the Cassiar before turning back.
- Fontas River - Fontas or Fantasque was the chief of a Sekani Indian band that had traditional fishing rights on this river.
- Prophet River - The Beaver Indians recognized certain people as 'dreamers' or 'prophets' who could foretell future events.
- This river may be named for a fairly recent prophet of the Beaver people, Notseta, the father of people still living on the Prophet River Reserve. Alternatively, it may be named for Decutla, a prophet of an earlier generation.
- Mount Sheffield - After Bert Sheffield, a trapper who drowned about 1945. A very good woodsman, with only a .22 rifle he could live off the country for six months at a time.
- Trutch - Takes its name from Trutch Creek nearby, named after Sir Joseph W. Trutch (1826-1904). Trutch, an English civil engineer who had worked in California and Oregon, carne to British Columbia in 1859.
- He was Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works and Surveyor-General of the Crown Colony of British Columbia from 1864 to 1871, when he resigned to become the highly successful first Lieutenant Governor of the province of British Columbia.
- Tuchodi River - From Slave Indian words meaning 'the place of big water,' presumably with reference to the Tuchodi Lakes, expansions of the river.
- With permission from G.P.V and Helen B. Akrigg 1997 British Columbia Place Names. UBC Press.
Address of this page: http://bc.ruralroutes.com/ProphetR