Édouard Beaupré, (January 9, 1881 – July 3, 1904) better known by his nickname "The Willow Bunch Giant" was a Canadian

circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicy ...

and

freak show A freak show is an exhibition of biological rarities, referred to in popular culture as "Freak, freaks of nature". Typical features would be physically unusual Human#Anatomy and physiology, humans, such as those uncommonly large or small, t ...

giant, professional wrestler, strongman, and star of Barnum and Bailey's circus. He was one of the tallest men in recorded history, with a reported height of .

Life

Édouard Beaupré was born in the southern

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...

town of Willow Bunch on January 9, 1881. He was the first of 20 children born to Gaspard Beaupré and Florestine Piché, a Métis. When he started school at seven, he was of average height, but at nine he was already , and at 12 he was over tall. He stopped going to school at this time. He spoke French, English, Métchif, Cree and Sioux. He was an excellent horseman, but by the age of 17 he had reached the height of and he abandoned the trade. His father worked as a freighter for the trader Jean-Louis Légaré, who was a cattle and horse rancher and also Beaupré's godfather. For several years he accompanied his father on his trips to Moose Jaw, Regina, and

Montana Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...

. Abandoning life on the ranch, Beaupré began touring. He displayed his strength by bending iron bars and lifting horses onto his shoulders. He toured from

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Manitoba. It is centred on the confluence of the Red River of the North, Red and Assiniboine River, Assiniboine rivers. , Winnipeg h ...

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

and stayed for a time in California. While in Montreal, on March 25, 1901, Beaupré wrestled Louis Cyr, a famous

French Canadian French Canadians, referred to as Canadiens mainly before the nineteenth century, are an ethnic group descended from French people, French colonists first arriving in Canada (New France), France's colony of Canada in 1608. The vast majority of ...

strongman. The match was very short, with Cyr winning. Around 21-years-old, he stood and weighed . His neck measured 21 inches in circumference and his hands were 12 and a half inches from the wrist to finger tips. His chest measured 56 inches while his shoes had to be custom made for his size 22 feet. In December 1903, he measured .

Death

Beaupré signed a contract on July 1, 1904, with the Barnum and Bailey circus to appear at the St. Louis World's Fair in St. Louis,

Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...

. However, just two days later on July 3, 1904, he died at age 23 of a pulmonary hemorrhage, a complication of

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

. At the time of his death, he was tall and weighed , as indicated on his death certificate.

Travels after death

At the circus' request, the undertaker embalmed Beaupré's body. However, the circus refused to pay, so they decided to preserve the body which they then put on display in St. Louis. Through an unknown connection, the body made it to the Museum of Eden in Montreal and was put on display there, but the exposition drew such a crowd that the authorities shut it down. The body was then passed on to a Montreal circus, but they quickly went bankrupt and dumped the body in a warehouse. It sat there until 1907, when two kids came across the body as they were playing in the warehouse. The

Université de Montréal The Université de Montréal (; UdeM; ) is a French-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university's main campus is located in the Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce on M ...

claimed the body, and, after doing some research and an autopsy, mummified Beaupré's body and placed it in a glass display case in the university.

Burial

The family only discovered Beaupré's body was in Montreal in 1967, and so in 1975 began the process to try to return the body to Willow Bunch for a proper burial. The university refused and claimed rights over the body, saying that they wanted to continue to perform research and did not want the body displayed anywhere else. In 1989 the family once again tried, this time bringing the media with them as well to put some pressure on the university. This time the effort worked, and so the university decided they could cremate the remains, to prevent anyone from grave-robbing the body. It took two big urns to contain Beaupré's ashes. Finally, in 1990, the ashes of ''le Géant Beaupré'' or ''le Géant de Willow-Bunch'' was taken back to Willow Bunch. The family had a memorial service, and his remains now lie in front of the Willow Bunch Museum.

Legacy

He is the subject of '' Beaupré the Giant (Géant Beaupré)'', a 2024 animated short film by Alain Fournier.Félix Poncelet-Marsan
"Alain Fournier a découvert l’animation en volume pour son projet « Géant Beaupré »"
''Qui Fait Quoi'', February 25, 2025.

References

External links

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Canada's Digital Collections
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beaupre, Edouard 1881 births 1904 deaths Canadian circus performers People with gigantism Fransaskois people Sideshow performers Tuberculosis deaths in Missouri 20th-century deaths from tuberculosis Canadian male wrestlers Professional wrestlers from Saskatchewan Circus strongmen and strongwomen