The bare facts
Some years ago I did a series of columns about bootleggers and the RCMP. This was aided and abetted by a knowledgeable gentleman at Abernethy, Sask., called Jack Stueck.
Recently we visited Grande Prairie, Alta., and were astonished to find that Saskatchewan does not have a monopoly on bootleggers and sin.
At Grande Prairie’s pioneer museum is a display installed in 1974 by the mounties to celebrate their 100th anniversary of policing in that northern Alberta region. As part of this display there are a number of stories about how mounties carried out their mandate to save moral Albertans from the ravages of demon drink. As in Saskatchewan, they found the makers of illegal mash had innovative ideas for avoiding arrest and jail sentences. On at least one occasion the police admitted that they had been thwarted.
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It seems a certain farmer had been supplementing his farming income with sales of home-made hooch. The mounties had staked out his farm and believed they had the goods on him. So one day they moved in.
His wife was home alone and saw them coming. She knew there was a quantity of home brew in the farm house and that her husband would be arrested if the mounties found it.
She quickly stripped off all of her clothes, filled a wash tub with water and hopped in. When the mounties yanked open the door, here was a naked woman having a bath.
Red-faced, they mumbled their apologies and beat a retreat. Mounties were in the habit of getting their man, but where bare women are involved, that was another matter.
