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My Dad The Rum Runner
Jim Stone
(2002)
INTRODUCTION
Between 1920 and 1933 Stuart Stone smuggled liquor from Vancouver to the
west coast of the United States, mainly aboard the ship he captained, the
Malahat, which was owned by the Reifel family. The five-masted schooner had a
cargo of 60,000 cases in the hold and 40,000 cases on deck.
She sailed south to Rum Row, off Hawai, to serve for six months at a time
as a floating warehouse for the fast off-shore craft which ferried the booze
into American ports. Often pursued
and occasionally seized illegally in international waters by the US Coastguard,
the Malahat was captained by a man who knew the shoreline and hiding places
better than his pursuers. In his evasions he was kept informed of the
whereabouts of the Coastguard by coded radio communications from his aunt,
Captain Stone’s sister-in-law, transmitted to the Rum Row mother ships, supply
ships and offshore boats from the hill high above Vancouver’s Jericho Beach,
messages passing on the warnings of other sympathetic coastal vessels. Over a
period of 60 years Stone’s son, Jim, pieced together his father’s secret
life on the seas. My
Dad, The Rum Runner is Jim’s memories of his father, combined with those
of the people closest to Captain Stone during the Prohibition years, newspaper
reports, and the ship’s log. (Most of the rum-running vessels carried two
logs, one for ‘deep-sixing’ if the coast guard boarded). This story not only
delves into the psyche of a young boy growing up with a mostly absent
father, but also explores a relatively mysterious time in Canadian and American
history.
FEATURES
- Winner
of the Kortum Award for original research in maritime history by the
National Maritime Museum in San Francisco.
- Black-and-white
photographs of Stuart Stone, his family, shipmates and associates, as well
as pictures of the Malahat carrying her ‘precious’ cargo.
- Bibliography
of the author’s sources.
REVIEWS
“Stone’s [novel
is ] colourful and racy, a…
poignant account of an often-absent father.”
-Pauline Finch, The Chronicle
“Writing and
self-publishing the story of his father’s exploits proved to be both a
fascinating look into a thinly documented era and a cathartic experience.”
-Valerie Hill, The K-W Record
RELATED LITERATURE
Allen, Ralph.
Ordeal by Fire:
Canada 1910-1945. Toronto:
Doubleday Canada Ltd., 1961.
Campbell, Robert A.
Demon Rum or Easy Money:
Gov’t Control of Liquor in British Columbia from Prohibition to
Privatization. Ottawa:
Carleton University Press, 1991.
Clark, Norman H.
The Dry Years:
Prohibition and Social Change in Washington.
Revised edition. Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 1988 [1965].
Gray, James H.
Bacchanalia Revisited:
Western Canada’s Boozy Skid to Social Disaster.
Saskatoon: Western Producer
Prairie Books, 1982.
-----.
Booze:
The Impact of Whisky on the Prairie West.
Toronto: Macmillan of
Canada, 1972.
Greene, Ruth.
Personality Ships of British
Columbia. West Vancouver:
Marine Tapestry Publications Ltd., 1969.
Lee, Henry.
How Dry We Were:
Prohibition Revisited. Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, Inc.,
1963.
Miles, Fraser.
Slow Boat on Rum Row.
Madeira Park (Sechelt, B.C.): Harbour
Publishing, 1992.
Newman, Peter C.
Bronfman Dynasty:
The Rothschilds of the New World.
Toronto: McClelland and
Stewart, 1978.
Parker, Marion and
Robert Tyrell. Rumrunner: The Life and
Times of Johnny Schnarr. Victoria,
B.C. and Seattle, Washington: Orca
Book Publishers Ltd., 1988.
Robinson, Geoff and
Dorothy. It Came by the Boat Load: Essays
on Rum Running. Published by
the authors, 1972.
Waters, Harold.
Smugglers of Spirits:
Prohibition and the Coast Guard Patrol.
New York: Hastings House,
1971.
Willoughby, Malcolm
F., Commander, USCGR(T). Rum
War at Sea. Washington:
U.S. Gov’t Printing Office, 1964.
INFORMATION ON ORDERING
My Dad, The Rum Runner. 140 pp.
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ISBN 0-9211075-26-X (library binding)
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ISBN 0-921075-25-1 (paper)
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....$30 CDN
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....$20 CDN
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