The Rumrunners: Dodging the Law During Prohibition

Geoff Hamilton is a Killam Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of
British Columbia.

Frank Anderson and Angela Murphy cover, respectively, assorted Albertan
rumrunners and prominent national criminals in these popular histories
from the Great Canadian Stories series, designed (and perfect) for
casual entertainment. A number of black-and-white photographs are
included in both texts.

Anderson offers a detailed account of the eclectic parties involved in
Albertan rum-running during Canada’s Prohibition years. The book’s
anecdotes are generally fast-paced and gripping, and the author is
skilful at conveying a sense of the social volatility generated by the
province’s seemingly unquenchable demand for liquor. The collaboration
of members of the government, law enforcement, and the business world in
illicit entrepreneurship is well-documented here. Anderson concludes
with a forceful argument for the futility, and indeed the insidiousness,
of Prohibition for Albertans: “It is true that the occasional ‘town
drunk’ is seen in Calgary, Lethbridge and Edmonton, but this seems a
small price to pay in contrast with the tension, the ever-present threat
of violence and the indignity that the average citizen was once forced
to endure to obtain liquor.” Scattered typographical errors detract a
little from the overall quality of Anderson’s writing.

Murphy’s 12 chapters look at infamous Canadian villains such as the
Black Donnellys and Edwin Alonzo Boyd, as well as lesser-known offenders
such as Hilda Blake (the “homicidal housemaid”), Bill Miner (the
“highfalutin’ highwayman”), and Valentine Shortis (a vicious
“aristocratic assassin”). Murphy has a good deal of promising
material here, though her writing is often cliché-ridden and somewhat
dull, offering little insight into her subjects’ idiosyncratic
psychology and the social milieu in which they committed their crimes.
Too often, she is content to consign her subjects to the realm of
unsolved and unsolvable mystery, as in her conclusion to a chapter on
Albert Johnson, the “mad trapper,” who was involved in a fatal
shootout with the Mounties: “On foot, alone and existing off the land,
he led his pursuers across dangerous and uncompromising terrain in
blizzard conditions for 70 kilometres, shooting with the intent to kill
anyone who got in his way. To this day, no one knows why.”