"Roots," Boots and Big Galoots: Edouard Beaupré

Ever since he was a kid Edouard Beaupré wanted to be a cowboy. He loved horses, and all he wanted to do was ride them every day of his life. Unfortunately ole Bullet couldn't pick up much speed with Ed's feet dragging on the ground, so his dream went up in smoke. He was 8' 2" and weighed four hundred pounds at the age of twenty-one.

With no other prospects Edouard joined a freak show and went on tour. Now instead of riding horses across vast green pastures he lifted them over his head in tents. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 23.

Since he was a celebrity of sorts, he had an agent, and those guys don't let death spoil their plans. The agent had him mummified and the tour continued. At some point he took a detour, though, and he vanished off the face of the earth until 1907, when some kids found him rotting in a warehouse.

People jumped out of the woodworks to claim him, like he was a treasure chest full of gold, but the University of Montreal won. They said they wanted him for research, but that meant preserving him like a ham and displaying him in a glass case, naked.

You should probably think twice about donating your body to these people.

The University finally let relatives take the body in 1989. He'd been so heavily treated, though, that doctors said he'd never decay, and his relatives were afraid he'd be dug up and put back on tour. They had him cremated, some eighty-five years after his death.

See the ashes near his statue in front of the Willow Bunch Museum, Saskatchewan, Canada. They're average-sized, so they won't touring soon.