[LINK] "Moonshine Runs Through the Veins of Prince Edward Island"

[rfmcdonald]

This article by VICE's Ivy Knight circulated on Facebook. My exposure to moonshine culture was limited, and frankly I'm suspicious of the suggestions contained therein to the effect that it's common. Perhaps my parents did just that superb a job of shielding me from some of the negative elements of Island culture; perhaps the writer is describing the Island of a generation back. Fun read regardless.

I grew up in Prince Edward Island with a guy named Merle.* A few years prior to his wedding, Merle, a seventh-generation islander, got drunk on shine and ended up chasing his future wife around the house with a shotgun.

Shine can do that to a person, though.

The wedding didn’t happen for a few years after the incident, and when it finally did, the traditional moonshine punch was scratched off the menu. Moonshine punch almost always appears at weddings and funerals here—it’s simply a part of life. People make it for their own use and to share with friends and family.

The culture of moonshine is strong in poor, rural Canadian areas where people are used to making everything from scratch, cherish a healthy disrespect for politics and the law, and have plenty of acreage to work in total obscurity.

“Even though Prohibition was in place from 1881 until 1949, people could still access alcohol— either by smuggling it in or making it themselves,” island historian and UPEI professor Ed MacDonald tells me. “For much of that history, it wasn’t that hard to get a drink if they wanted one—it was just illegal. To make shine was a way of thumbing your nose at authority.”

[. . .]

Prince Edward Island is Canada’s smallest province. Nicknamed “Spud Island” for its incredible potatoes, famous blue mussels, and fictional literary heroine, Anne of Green Gables, our beaches and golf courses are some of the best in the country. It also happens to be the last province to repeal Prohibition. Most of Canada turned the taps back on in the 20s, but our island stayed dry until 1948. Keeping alcohol illegal for Islanders almost 20 years longer than the rest of the country became a driving force of dedication to making homemade booze.