Black Bond Books is hosting author John Appleby, who led the Delta Chamber twice, for a Meet & Greet and Book Signing on Saturday, Sept. 21 from noon to 2 p.m.
Appleby has coupled his financial, military, and transportation background with his degree in history to produce a novel on Canadian rumrunners in the 1920s.
In the chaotic aftermath of the Great War, the American adoption of Prohibition brought sudden changes to their economy.
There was a ready supply of customers among returning soldiers who had been fighting the war and were not consulted.
There were brewers, distillers and vintners together with their related retailers and wholesalers whose businesses had been vaporized.
At the same time, work in Canada was in short supply.
Much of the alcohol in demand was manufactured in Canada and Britain. London banks, with money spun out of the wreckage of empires and available on deposit, were there to help.
The Government of Canada was first in line, as it collected tax on every case taken out of a warehouse — and looked away from the details of delivery. The trade was spread all along the border with the United States, but British Columbia’s specialty was its maritime connections. Seafarers had a shortage of ships and boat builders needed work.
The liquor trade ran from BC ports to supply ships stationed well offshore down the Pacific coast.
It also ran to a very large market, Seattle, at the base of Puget Sound.
Two Canadian naval officers, home from the war — Dugald McPherson, a skilled ship handler, and Peter Arundel, a Victoria based link to the bankers — service this market as the Night Runners of the Winter Seas.
