Much like the vibrant tapestry of the fall leaves on our beloved Blue Mountain, so too is the rich tapestry of the enterprising and intrepid folks who have come before us and called Collingwood home.
One of these souls I was quite fortunate to call “Pop”: my grandfather, Harold Henry Carefoot. Born in 1905 to William and Mary Carefoot, my grandpa, like his father before him, contributed to our town’s former life force, the Shipyards. When my great-grandfather died in 1929 after being fatally scalded in a workplace accident, my grandfather became the sole financial support for his family. Ever the clever entrepreneur, he supplemented his family’s income by being a rum runner during the Prohibition era.
This photo, which I treasure, was taken around 1932 and shows him as a swarthy and handsome 27-year-old, huddled against the wind on the deck of a frozen ship on one of those infamous booze runs. Owen Sound, which had become “dry” in 1908, surprisingly observed Prohibition until 1972, and Pop would have taken nefarious pleasure in crossing Georgian Bay in the dead of night or the dead of winter to supply the locals, with whom he no doubt sampled his wares and shared his stories. He also made regular trips in his old Nash automobile south to Lake Ontario to make the crossing to the United States, which observed Prohibition until 1933.
Pop had many adventures in life, including once being held up at gunpoint by robbers beside the driving shed in the back field of my grandparents’ Ontario Street homestead. He was a wonderful and generous soul who sadly spent the latter years of his life confined to wearing a leg brace as a result of polio. Despite this hardship, he was a loving and feisty man who regaled me with many tales of both his and our town’s colourful past. Sadly, Pop passed away in 1976, but he continues to live on in my heart, in my memories and in wonderful cherished photos and stories such as this. ❧
