Canada's Rumrunners
Incredible Adventures and Exploits During Canada's Illicit Liquor Trade
AUTHOR: Art Montague
FORMAT: 5.5 x 8.5 pb / 144 pages
ISBN-10: 1-55153-947-0
ISBN-13: 9781551539478
It is safe to say that America would have been a much drier place during Prohibition if Canadians had not rushed to the aid of their neighbours. While the United States was in full Prohibition (1920-1933), Canadian entrepreneurs were hard at work across the country supplying liquor by the barrel-load.
Prologue
On a quiet spring night in 1921, Ontario sailor George Woodward eased his 30-foot cabin cruiser, Le Voyageur II, into the Canada Customs dock at Belleville. It was midnight, and the government dock was deserted. George, who had already hauled three loads of bourbon across Lake Ontario that week, was eager to load another 200 cases and be on his way. But he would have to wait until dawn.
George moored his boat in the shadow of a decrepit steamship called the City of Dresden. Eyeing the old steamship, he couldn’t help but envy John McQueen, her skipper. The Dresden could carry 4000 cases of whisky on a single run, a payload that made George’s efforts seem nickels and dimes. Still, his nickels and dimes were adding up fast.
After securing Le Voyageur II, George walked into town to while away the remainder of the night. Like most rumrunners, he had money — lots of money by his standards, and certainly enough to buy a few drinks and play some cards at a blind pig (Canadian term for speakeasy).
In the early morning light, George got back to the dock just as a small yard engine was shunting two boxcars onto the government siding by the wharf. The boxcars were full of whisky from the Corby’s distillery a few kilometres away. Pleased at his timing, George began to load his boat.
Suddenly, police bounded down the gangplank of the City of Dresden, where they had been hiding in the cabin. Before George had a chance to even question what was going on, he was handcuffed and informed that he was under arrest. To top it off, his boat and cargo were seized.
George was beside himself. More than that, he was enraged. His Canada Customs export papers were in order, indicating his shipment was consigned to a buyer in Mexico. The appropriate excise tax had been prepaid by the distillery. As far as Canadian federal law went, everything was on the up-and-up. But the police didn’t care about the federal law. They were charging him under Ontario liquor laws, alleging he intended to sell the whisky in Ontario. Now that was illegal!
The stage was set for the most significant rumrunner trial in the Canadian history of Prohibition. If the Province won the case, rumrunning by small boats and cars would virtually end, and Canadian distilleries would lose up to 80 percent of their market. None of that concerned George. He was being wronged. He wanted his boat back. And he wanted his booze back.
In court, George readily admitted he was smuggling the bourbon to the United States. To prove it, two American bootleggers took the stand and testified they’d hired George to do the smuggling. Not only that; they had loaned him the money Canada’s Rumrunners to buy his boat and had paid the distillery for the whisky through a shell company in Mexico.
The distillery plant manager then took the stand and confirmed the whisky had been sold to the Mexican company in accordance with Canadian law and was in no way a violation of U.S. law.
Canada Customs officials testified that George’s export papers were in order and that his export taxes had been paid in full. How his 30-foot cabin cruiser could make it to Mexico was never at issue, and what he did with the cargo once it left the government wharf was not Canada’s business as far as the federal government was concerned.
Magistrate S. Masson took a few days to mull over his verdict. Finally, in his wisdom, he affirmed that while George was admittedly a smuggler, he had broken no Canadian laws. He found George not guilty, and went on to say, “There is no burden cast upon us to enforce the laws of the United States.”
By 1922, the floodgates were open for Canadian rumrunners. The Masson decision effectively turned a ripple into a tidal wave of whisky, and riding right on the crest, of course, were the 200 cases of George Woodward’s cargo, which the magistrate ordered be returned to him immediately.
About the Author
Toronto native and full-time freelancer Art Montague writes feature articles on (mostly) Canadian accomplishments for U.S. and international print publications. Writing Amazing Stories (six to date) has allowed him to research and write in the fields he most enjoys: history, crime, and biography. Time permitting, he also writes crime and mystery fiction.
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