When is a picture of a hotel not just a picture of a hotel? When it was owned by President Donald Trump’s grandfather Friedrich, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is giving a present.

I mean, look at the expression on Trudeau’s face.

Great moment between @JustinTrudeau and @POTUS when he gave him picture of the President’s grandfather’s hotel in Canada. #G72018 pic.twitter.com/mtl5c7QPB3

— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) June 9, 2018

Yes, it was a hotel, but….

Yeah, also, the hotel was a brothel: https://t.co/FLgzqUAhpO https://t.co/FVflFCssyF

— Heather Barr (@heatherbarr1) June 9, 2018

True story.

Trump’s grandfather started the family fortune in an adventure that involved the Klondike gold rush, the Mounties, prostitution and twists of fate that pushed him to New York City.

He’d left Europe in 1885 at age 16, a barber’s apprentice whose father died young.

Trump wanted a life outside the barber shop, far from the family-owned vineyards his ancestors had been working since they’d settled in Germany’s Kallstadt region in the 1600s carrying the soon-altered surname Drumpf.

He sailed in steerage to join his sister in New York.

Within five years he’d anglicized his name to Frederick; moved to the young timber town of Seattle; and amassed enough cash to buy tables and chairs for a restaurant.

His next big move was heralded by the front page of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer of July 17, 1897, and its exclamatory headline: “Gold! Gold! Gold!”

It described a resplendent scene at the port involving mountains of yellow metal and men returning from the “New Eldorado” with fortunes as high as $100,000.

Trump sold everything and headed north.

In his three years in Canada, Trump opened the Arctic Restaurant and Hotel in two locations with a partner — first on Bennett Lake in northern B.C., and then moving it to Whitehorse, Yukon.

Their two-storey wood-framed establishment gained a reputation as the finest eatery in the area, Blair said — offering salmon, duck, caribou, and oysters.

It offered more than food.

“The bulk of the cash flow came from the sale of liquor and sex,” Blair wrote. She cited newspaper ads referring obliquely to prostitution — mentioning private suites for ladies, and scales in the rooms so patrons could weigh gold if they preferred to pay for services that way.

And in the Yukon, this was all tolerated by the Mounties… for a while.

By early 1901, trouble was brewing.

The Mounties announced plans to banish prostitution, and curb gambling and liquor. Trump quarrelled with his partner. Gold strikes were getting scarcer.

“The boom was over, Frederick Trump realized,” Blair wrote. “He had made money; perhaps even more unusual in the Yukon, he had also kept it and departed with a substantial nest-egg.”

He returned to Germany with US$582,000 in today’s currency, and found a wife. But he was greeted as a draft-dodger for being away and becoming a U.S. citizen during his military years.

So he was deported from his own country. He boarded a ship for New York, his wife pregnant with Donald’s dad.

The elder Trump died of pneumonia in 1918, leaving behind some real estate. His son built the empire, his grandson the global brand.

Look, I am no fan of Trudeau, but I can appreciate a good burn. And really, everyone who does support the president should be able to snicker, shake it off, and move forward. Have a sense of humor. None of us can help our ancestors, especially when the interesting history happens long before we were born.

Well played, Trudeau. Now on to more important matters.

We will always stand up for Canadian workers, their jobs & their livelihoods. Today at the @g7 I sat down with @realDonaldTrump for a meeting focused on trade and NAFTA negotiations. pic.twitter.com/roVuNV54ft

— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) June 9, 2018

Canada charges the U.S. a 270% tariff on Dairy Products! They didn’t tell you that, did they? Not fair to our farmers!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 8, 2018

Looking forward to straightening out unfair Trade Deals with the G-7 countries. If it doesn’t happen, we come out even better!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 8, 2018

It seems that you two have matters of serious import to discuss.