On the Open Road with Fred Spalding

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Fred Spalding was a remarkable man. He left his native England and came to Canada. Then he took the train across the country to Vancouver. In 1904, at the age of 27, he arrived in the booming frontier town of Fernie, which was rich with mining and forestry.

Fred was a professional photographer and most likely the only one in town. He set up business with a studio and began taking pictures. There was a lot going on in this dynamic part of the world and Fred was taking pictures of all of it. He was very much taken by the beauty of the area and made photo postcards to help with tourism.

By 1913 he had bought a McLaughlin and developed a passion for driving. He decided to drive as many roads as he could in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan. He put an accessory odometer on the car to keep tabs on his mileage. At the end of this grand journey he had done 23,000 miles. When he got home he wrote a guide book of all the roads he travelled. The following is an excerpt from that book:
'Owing to our failure in getting over Jones’s Bluff, we had to turn back to Rosedale from where we intended to take the ferry across to Agassiz, and from there ship the car by the CPR to Lytton. On the way back, we had two blow outs to our intense disgust, which made the third that day. The ferryman would not take us across that night as the river was low and the landing on the other side a poor one, so we had to stay the night. The only place was a kind of temperance hotel and fairly comfortable.'

In 1919, with a newer model McLaughlin, he decided to tour the western United States, going as far south as Mexico. He drove through Washington, Idaho, California and Oregon. This tour put 12,000 miles on the car. When he got home he wrote another book entitled On the Open Road. The following is an excerpt from that book:
'The actual time spent on the road was 346 days, average daily expenses at hotels, mechanics wages, $12 garage bills for repairs, storage, gasoline and oil $900.00 and two completer sets of tires, to which has to be added the cost of printing and binding, and other incidental expenses. The sale of a book of this kind is a limited one, consequently the returns are slow, so a careful consideration of the above facts by the reader will convince him that the price of this book ($3.00) is exceedingly moderate.'

In Fred’s writing, he mentions valuable information to automobilists such as road conditions, gas stations and amenities of living. In all the miles he travelled there were very few moments of drama except for one accident just outside of Osoyoos which he describes in his book. He also gives advice as to how to behave when touring which he called 'Fred’s Don’ts'.
• DON’T show off your car’s capabilities for speed through towns. Eight miles an hour is the limit in some, 10 miles in most.
• DON’T curse a teamster whose horses are restive and delay you. Autos are yet strange in parts of BC, besides you might be glad enough of a teamster’s help some time or other.
• DON’T go into BC, under the impression that it is the wild and woolly West, that you can cut ’er loose and everything goes. There is a higher plane of civilization here than in most places, and a very effective body of police who, generally speaking, won’t stand for the rough stuff.
• DON’T take any chances with a poor machine in this Province. Repair shops are few, and while the majority of blacksmiths can fix up minor breaks unless you are near one of the larger towns or carry extra parts with you, you are very liable to get hung up. Even the best cars will get a very thorough testing here.

Fred also wrote a letter to the local newspaper, The Fernie Free Press, to encourage the promotion of the area for tourism. It worked and Fernie embraced this as an important part of their growing business. An excerpt of the letter is shown below.
'Dear Sir: - My recent trip of well over 12,000 miles through the states of Idaho, Washington, Oregon and California as far south as Mexico, and my previous trip of 23,000 miles in which I covered the whole of Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia, have convinced me more firmly than ever of the correctness of my oft made assertion that in this district and within a radius of 50 miles from Fernie, we have absolutely the finest scenery there is in the whole of the North American continent.'

Joseph Frederick Spalding was a remarkable man with a positive outlook and a driving force. If you would like to know more about him and his photography I would suggest you Google him. There is a very good website dedicated to his legacy.

Words: Steve Diggins
 

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