Bootlegging on Cape Breton Island, the illegal distribution or production of liquor and other highly taxed goods. First practiced when liquor taxes were high, bootlegging was instrumental in defeating early attempts to regulate the liquor business by taxation. After the appearance of local and provincial options, those areas that voted to prohibit liquor were supplied with bootlegged liquor often from St. Pierre and Miquelon Islands. There was also considerable smuggling from foreign countries in order to evade customs duties. In the period of prohibition (1920–33) these activities increased greatly, and by 1930 they were well organized as a large illegitimate industry. Certain areas were dominated by gangs that fought to defend or extend their territory. Infamous gangsters such as Al Capone in Chicago and Legs Diamond in New York City were heavily involved in bootlegging. The retail outlet in the prohibition period was the speakeasy, though a house-to-house delivery system to established customers was also well developed. A high degree of organization also prevailed in international liquor smuggling. The combination of graft and violence accompanying this industry became so intolerable that it was an important factor in the final repeal of prohibition. A lot of this spilled over into Canada and into areas of Cape Breton Island. Bootlegging remains a practice in many areas and was common throughout Cape Breton Island after the prohibition with moonshine being introduced and just the idea of being able to go to the quick and easy outlet of a bootlegger being available instead of having to go to the nearest liquor store involving an expensive taxi fare and the inconvenience of travel. I recall on a visit home in the 1960’s taking my father to Bras d’Or for a drink he would direct me to one of his favourite bootleggers at the Shacks by passing the legal outlet at Bras d’Or Tavern. When leaving the bootlegger he invariably ordered a case of beer from him at about twice the price that it would be at the Government Store. When I mentioned this to him, he would invariably say, “ah what the hell the poor bastard is out of work and needs to make a dollar.” When I was growing up in the 1940’s and 1950’s there were young fellows provided high powered cars who took car loads of alcohol from St. Pierre from Sydney to Boston and New York this after prohibition was over.
The antiquated liquor laws that existed in the 1930’s, 1940’s and 1950’s were silly and probably contributed to drunkenness and certainly some families having to go hungry. No doubt these laws resulted from the years of prohibition. Oftentimes some men would spend their hard earned money at the bootlegger’s while their families went without. There was no shortage of bootleggers in the little village I grew up in, Alder Point ,during these years. Your parent (usually the father) gave you a note with a fist full of change and sent you off to get a quart or two of beer. You had a choice starting at The Beach, you could go to at least ten different bootleggers between Arsenault’s Store and the Alder Point School. There were at least another half dozen between the Alder Point School and Archie MacKinnon’s farm. Some of them were very small operators and dealt mainly with beer – you went to the door, paid your money and quickly departed with a couple of bottles of beer. Others were more sophisticated where you went in and sat in the parlour or kitchen and were served your booze in a glass. Here you could engage in civilized conversation and listen to “Gabriel Heater” give the war news or discuss the price of swordfish and generally tell lies.
Right up until I left home in the 1949’s you had to fill out a slip of paper at the liquor store in Sydney Mines or North Sydney and present it for your purchase. I don’t know how much longer this remained in effect but it certainly was a left over from World War Two practices and an antiquated one at that. Even when the taverns opened in the early 1950’s women were not permitted entry to these unclean and untidy and for the most part dens of antiquity. I was in Bras d’Or Tavern one Halloween Night when three women came in in-costume and ordered beer and sat and drank them. It was a howl to them and to the customers who realized after they departed that they were women. Old Bill Young, the owner, didn’t take too kindly to being hoodwinked but laughed it off nonetheless.
Another oddity of the times was that a wife could appear in front of a magistrate and swear an oath placing her husband on what was called, “The Indian List” which then caused him under penalty of fine and jail not to be in possession of alcohol while he was so branded – quite a law. It was legally known as the Interdiction Act and was aimed at Indians and Half Breeds. Wonder if it still exists?
Imagine denying the thousands of Indians and Half Breeds the ability to enjoy a beer in a government authorized establishment after them seeing service in both WWI and WWII on behalf of Canada. How cruel the politicians were at the time. It appears each province had their own version of the Interdiction Act.
I am told that bootlegging still exists on Cape Breton Island to this day and you can even get a good drink of Captain Morgan’s rum brought over from St. Pierre and the Miquelon Islands if you are discreet and ask the right fella at the right time. With a wink and a nod you can even get a good shot of pure moonshine that will make your eyes sparkle as well.
I believe this fella is from Bras d’Or
Pierre and encouraged the fur trade with local members of the Mi’kmaq Nation who used the isthmus as a canoe portage route between the Atlantic Ocean and Bras d’Or Lake. In addition to establishing a fur trading post, Denys later used the isthmus as a “haul over road” for portaging small sailing ships from Bras d’Or Lake to the Atlantic and vice versa.France lost possession of present-day peninsular (main land) Nova Scotia to Britain in the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. France began moving some Acadian colonists to Ile Royale (present-day Cape Breton Island) to populate this remaining outpost of Acadia. Port Toulouse was created near the 17th century location of the fortified community of Saint Pierre as a logistics base and supply centre for Fortress Louisbourg. To protect Port Toulouse, France built another fortification on the shore. The forts at Port Toulouse and Saint Pierre and settlements in the area were destroyed by the British in 1758 following the fall of Fortress Louisbourg and the rest of Acadia became a British colony.
The village of St. Peters was founded early in the 1800s. Local residents rehabilitated Denys’s old “haul over road”, laying wood skids for portaging small sailing ships across the isthmus. The route through Bras d’Or Lake was considered a much shorter and safer voyage to Sydney than traveling around the exposed southern coast of Cape Breton Island. In 1825 a feasibility study into building a canal was undertaken. Construction of the St. Peters Canal began in 1854 and took 15 years of digging, blasting and drilling through a solid granite hill 20 m (65 ft high to build a channel 800 m (2,600 ft long with an average width of 30 m (100 ft). The canal opened in 1869 at the dawn of the industrial age on Cape Breton Island. There can be a tidal difference of up to 1.4 m (4.5 ft) thus a lock was designed to regulate water levels.
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