This week we finally started to go over whatever happened after WWI finally ended. The 1920’s were defined by a few things, but most of them were sad and not very interesting, so I’m just going to ignore most of it and be happy that I wasn’t alive in that pathetic time period (I can say this because nobody who remembers the 1920s knows how to use a computer).

Canada sucked pretty badly back then. In the whole lesson, I only found one interesting thing about us. We profited from American prohibition in a YUGE way.

Two years ago, in the summer of 2015, I went to Washington DC. When I went to the National Museum of Archives, there was an entire exhibit about prohibition. I spent a lot of time in that exhibit because I found it pretty interesting. However, I don’t remember it ever mentioning Canada’s part in their prohibition. So when I found out how big a part Canada had in America having alcohol in the 1920s and 30s, I was pretty impressed with us. I was also slightly annoyed that America tends to erase our history, but I don’t have time to be pissed off about that right now.

The point is, Canadians had a huge part in helping our Yankee neighbors attain alcohol when it was illegal in the United States. This was called “rum-running“, and it was pretty much exactly what it sounds like. They ran….booze. Across the border. It was one of the only good ways to make money after the stock market crashed in 1929, although people still did it much earlier than that. The biggest output for this was in Windsor, Ontario. It’s the southmost city in Canada and had actually been smuggling alcohol into the US since 1916, as that’s when it’s neighbours in Michigan got their booze taken away. They invented a culture of smuggling that would be followed across Canada as more and more places started to band alcohol.

When you ban things, people get better at hiding them. The black market for booze was complex, and had its own set of rules. If someone came into a speakeasy declaring “Joe sent them”, that meant they brought you the goods. Quietly, they would unload a truck full of liquid into your building, you would pay them the money, and everyone would be on their merry way.

Okay- maybe it wasn’t that simple. But that was essentially how it would go. It most likely wasn’t nearly as monitored as we would have thought. If you think about it, it may be even less monitored than marijuana has been nowadays (or, up until very recently). It can be hard to get even a little bit of drugs across the borders, and in the 1920s and 30s, hundreds of people were bringing truckloads of illegal alcohol across the borders, and most people didn’t get caught. You can boil that down to lack of technology or stupidity as they didn’t check people at the border as much back then, but it also shows that prohibition was only a huge deal because a majority of the population drank alcohol. The people fighting against it were in the minority, and they still are, which is why we laugh at posters like these:

But take very seriously posters like these (again, lesser in the past few years):

There may have been less problems rum-running because there weren’t too many people opposing it. Chances are, the guy running the post at the border would head to the speakeasy as soon as his shift was over. If the American people looked the other way, and the Canadian government looked the other way, it made for a very easy arrangement on both sides. That’s how this whole situation would be able to work. It’s something that we could never accomplish today because of screens and everything, but without the screens, it’s pretty easy to get past the big guy when you’re all on the same side.

Anyways, while I was busy researching this, I found out something even more interesting. Well, to me. Eh, maybe to other people as well, we’ll see.

I found out that my great-grandfather WAS rum-runner! He was also a cowboy, professional hockey player, fought in WWI, and built a ferry or something. I think when I was talking to my grandfather about this he also mentioned something about an ice-cream truck, but I honestly cannot be certain.

Speaking of, I did phone my grandfather after my mom told me about this, and he gave me some information on what he knows about what his dad did.

This all happened before my grandfather was born. From approx. 1931 to 1933, my great-grandfather Bill McKinley had a job as a truck driver, and part of what he did was run alcohol down to the United States from Alberta. He took a lot of other stuff places as well, but the rum running was very much there. He did this during the off-season of hockey, which he played professionally for a team located in Edmonton. However, the pay wasn’t very good. Luckily, one of the deals of being on the hockey team was that they arranged jobs for players during the off-season. Although my grandfather can’t know for sure, he’s pretty convinced that this truck driver job was what was arranged for his father. He did it for so long wearing long boot up to his knees that he actually stopped growing hair under his knees. That’s the story, anyways.

My grandfather isn’t sure whether or not his dad took the booze all the way down to the speakeasies or just passed them off to someone else for that part. In fact, my grandfather didn’t have a lot of information past the fact that he did this job and that he was a “badass”.

Though my mom did have some pictures of him.

Here’s Bill McKinley when he was in uniform for when he was in the military. This would be around 1940 I’m guessing? I’m pretty sure he was in the Air Force due to the wings.

Also, his eyes creep me out.

Here he is as an older man, carrying my mom on his shoulders. This would be around 1973. He died in 1986. I think he was about 70-something when he passed away.

Here he is with my grandfather, Martin McKinley, at the ocean or a lake or something. This would be approx. 1940. I also can’t help but notice the cigarette in his mouth, and I am happy that it is no longer socially acceptable to smoke near your child’s head.

I’m pretty certain this is my grandfather with my newborn mother. If that is the case, this would be in October 1971.

Here he is again with his wife, Norma McKinley. They were together their whole lives. Of course, you couldn’t really divorce people easily until the 1970s that’s no suprise.