A unique chapter of Canadian history will finally have a home in Dartmouth, N.S., 60 years after four men hopped on a log raft and floated across the Atlantic Ocean.

The voyage would eventually be known as the Atlantic Kon-Tiki. The legendary journey will be celebrated with a plaque at the Kings Wharf development in Dartmouth.

The journey started in the mind of Henri Beaudout, a young Frenchman who moved to Canada after the Second World War. He had heard of a similar voyage across the Pacific. In 1946, Thor Heyerdahl sailed a log raft called Kon-Tiki from Peru to French Polynesia.

Beaudout wondered if he could do the same thing across the Atlantic. He spent months studying water currents and wave heights, and determined that the trip could be completed if he started from Halifax Harbour.

Hatching a plan

In 1956, he convinced three of his friends to tag along. The men arrived in Halifax in the winter and wanted to build the raft out of telephone poles. But the phone poles were made of white cedar, and they needed red cedar. So they had to import them.

It took months to build their raft and the small hut sitting on top.

Henri Beaudout speaks Thursday. He's the last surviving crew member. (CBC)

Despite warnings not to do it from everyone they met — including the Canadian Coast Guard — they left on their voyage in May 1956.

"Every time I talked about it, everybody thought I was crazy," said Beaudout through a translator at an event in Dartmouth Thursday. Beaudout is the last surviving member of the crew.

Living off sharks, cans of water

They named the raft L'Égaré II, which means the lost one. It was appropriate as Beaudout himself felt adrift; he was suffering from PTSD from the war. He felt his voyage was a mission he had to complete.

The men brought two cats and watched them react to changes in air pressure, which the crew hoped would alert them to coming storms.

When they reached the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, one crew member fell ill and had to be rescued. The remaining crew survived on rations, fishing — including a shark they caught — and drank cans of water.

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After 88 days afloat, they landed in Falmouth, U.K., as instant celebrities.

Beaudout says he was relieved, but in no way tempted to try the trek again. He knew he wasn't invincible.

"It was the first time that anybody did this in the world," said Beaudout. "But it didn't make us supermen."

Cats adopted by Royal Family

Some of those involved in the Grand Banks rescue met Beaudout at Thursday's ceremony for the first time in six decades. It was an emotional moment, as they never forgot the shock of seeing the raft bobbing in the ocean, and thinking that the crew was doomed.

A replica of the raft sits at the feet of the person who dreamed it up. (CBC)

As for the cats, they perhaps celebrated the biggest success of the journey.

On land, they were adopted by Britain's Royal Family and lived like kings for the rest of their days.