N.W.T. lotto winner takes $1M cash over car

A cancer patient in the Northwest Territories has won a $1-million car, but says he's taking cash instead because he doesn't need such a fast machine in a remote town with one 12-kilometre road.

Louie Edgi of Norman Wells said he won a Koenigsegg CCX sports car from the Cash and Cars Lottery, which supports the Alberta Cancer Foundation and the Canadian Cancer Society.

The CCX, one of the lottery's grand prizes, is unique in Canada and considered to be the second-fastest production car in the world.

"The car is a Swedish make; it'll do 400 kilometres an hour. I don't see anybody would need that," Edgi told CBC News on Thursday.

"It's worth a million dollars, so they gave me the option of taking the car or the cash. But living here in Norman Wells, I can't really see myself needing a car."

No highways lead to Norman Wells, a town of 761 located about 690 kilometres northwest of Yellowknife along the Mackenzie River. Had Edgi opted for the car, it would have had to be flown there or driven up on a winter ice road.

The longest road in Norman Wells is an unpaved 12-kilometre stretch. Zipping across town with the Koenigsegg CCX would have taken less than two minutes.

Edgi said he won the car after buying 10 lottery tickets in Edmonton, where he was being treated for a brain tumour.

He said he's feeling a lot better since his cancer treatment, and so is his family.

"The wife is all excited and the kids are excited, but I don't think they really grasp what a million dollars is," he said. "They'll get it eventually."

Edgi said he cannot see himself with a $1-million car, but is relieved to win the cash. Even if his cancer treatment does not go well, he said, his family will be looked after.