The Fort St. John North Peace Museum will be hosting a documentary night on Jan. 19 at 7pm, with a viewing of The Champagne Safari, a look at eccentric millionaire Charles Bedaux, and the 1934 expedition he funded through Fort St. John and into the Northern Rockies. Admission to the event is free, although donations are welcome.
2024 marks the 90th anniversary of the Bedaux Expedition, a colourful part of the North Peace's history and a venture that brought much needed cash to cowboys and packers during the Great Depression, hired to help navigate through the wilderness.
"We wanted a way to kind of mark the 90th anniversary, and this is kind of the best way, although we have a lot photos in our collection and a small exhibit that includes the Bedaux Expedition, we don't have the array of film footage that's on the DVD and the personal interviews and so on," said museum curator Heather Sjoblom.
Bedaux's strange character, the timing of his expedition, and his choice to explore Northern B.C. made the expedition a memorable part of Peace Region history, added Sjoblom. A display has also been set up at the North Peace Regional Airport to showcase the people and items involved in the expedition.
"Not that many expeditions, one, come through this area, and two, bring stuff like champagne and caviar, and a collapsible bathtub, as well as Bedaux's wife and mistress," she said. "So, it's quite a different story than one is used to."
The North Peace Historical Society also set a new volunteer record in 2023, with 4,956.5 hours contributed, equivalent to 2.75 full-time staff.
Volunteers welcome visitors to the museum, maintain grounds, look after exhibits and historic buildings, and run the gift shop, in addition to scanning newspapers and photographs, cataloguing items for the museum's database, research archival inquiries, develop exhibits, run event and tours, and much more.
The museum also has a revamped exhibit with new additions this month, Ancient Tool Technologies: Discovering the Lifeways of the Early Peoples of the North, put together by archeology student Jennie Glennie.
It includes a piece of obsidian originating from Mount Edziza, the traditional territory of the Tahltan. Volcanic glass from Northwestern B.C. was traded all the way to Northern Alberta and Alaska to be made into stone tools, and the site is the largest source of obsidian in Western Canada.
A online map is available to the public and visitors can scroll through the numbered artifacts to learn more about 67 items on display in the exhibit.
The museum will also host their first kids night of the year on Feb. 2, highlighting nurse, hospitals, and doctors in the North Peace, from Anne Roberts Young to x-rays, providing interesting facts and stories on what it was like to practice medicine in the past.
Registration is mandatory for the event, $5 per child or $10 for a family and must be purchased in advance, and will be available at the museum starting Jan. 22.
