Spalding History - 09

In early 1924 Spalding received a business proposition that he could not turn down. Gowen and Stutton, a Vancouver based photography firm, extended a full partnership to Spalding. By year’s end Spalding resigned as Tourist Commissioner and moved to Vancouver. The image shown here taken by Spalding during one of his early auto journeys through BC was published by Gowen and Sutton. After three years he sold his share back and once again ventured out on his own.

Forming The Camera Products Company he produced a series of hand-tinted postcards. His subjects ranged from images of coastal Alaska, urban scenes in the major cities of the west and the landscapes on the roads and railways that connected them.

Joseph Frederick Spalding—photographer, tourist, visionary—would enjoy a long career as a photographer. By the time of his death in 1958, he could not know that the accuracy and affection with which he had recorded Fernie’s most historic period, would today, nearly a century after his arrival, be valued so highly