23/05/2016
NUGGET The 1917 Round – Up was very similar to the first one, and in spite of the fact it was hampered by a three day rain, it did come off in grand style.
About this time in history, temperance groups pressured the Alberta Government into declaring Alberta a dry Province. All the old barrooms closed their doors, and that old familiar cry, “belly up the bar boys, I’m buying for the house, “was heard no more. The only alcoholic beverage that could be legally sold, was a tasteless beer called “two percent.” The stuff was non - intoxicating, and tasted like stagnant slough water, if you really wanted to tie on a good jag, you could drink either one and get the same results, “sicker than a dog.”
Alberta’s new liquor laws opened the door for wholesale production of home distilled products referred to as, home brew, moonshine, h***h, rot gut, rat poison, and several other appealing, but less appropriate names. This stuff was distilled by individuals who had little, or no knowledge of what they were doing, and under revolting sanitary conditions.
One party gave a guided tour through his layout that was capable of turning out three or four gallons a day. The still was located in an excavation under a huge manure pile. The only entrance, was by way of a trap door in the bottom of a manger in a sod barn, and a narrow tunnel leading to the still room.
This man kept several barrels of mash, at various stages of fermentation buried deep in the manure pile, the rotting manure produced just the right temperature to insure perfect fermentation. There was no worry about a little manure spilling into the fermenting mash, it couldn’t possibly spoil the flavor, and anything would be an improvement.
Since the Round – Up provided a lucrative market for moonshiners’ poisonous whiskey, that tasted like a blend of carbolic acid and turpentine, and would kill you just as dead if you drank too much, it caused lots of headaches for the management during the 1918 and 1919 Round – Up’s, riding hard on the cowboys and actors keeping them sober. But with four more able men added to the Committee, the 1918 Round – Up ran smoothly, and without a hitch.
After all the exciting, humorous, and hair raising items on the program were over, dancing in the open – air pavilion continued until dawn.
And so ended the Ranchers Round – Up for 1918.
Those in attendance sure did like to have fun and they were not going to let a little thing like Prohibition get in the way. At the Big Gap 100 Celebration there may or may not be moonshine, but for sure there will be dancing.
