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Hotel Spaulding. Photo courtesy of High Prairie and District Museum. Unauthorized use strictly prohibited.

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Hotel Spaulding

Gary Wayboer , 1960 , High Prairie, Alberta

Charles Solon Spaulding, a Massachusetts native, was born in 1870. He and his wife Christina arrived in High Prairie, Alberta around 1915 and bought the MacLeod Hotel. In 1919, they constructed their own hotel, the Hotel Spaulding, just across the street. After Charles passed away in 1943, the Royer family took ownership of the hotel before it was eventually purchased by Roy Ells. The Spaulding name remained on the local landmark until it tragically burned down in 1981.

Artist Gary Wayboer
Type: Artwork, Painting
Material: Oil on canvas
Accession Number: X-3303
Dimensions: 52 x 67.3 cm
Credit: Gary Wayboer

The painting depicts the Spaulding Hotel shortly after its opening in 1920. This photo from the Provincial Museum of Alberta / High Prairie and District Museum collection (#A2398) shows the hotel around the same time.

This painting is an example of Prairie Folk Art within the broader tradition of Western Canadian Regionalism. Created in 1960, it reflects a period when many self-taught and community-based artists documented familiar local subjects, including hotels, businesses, farms, and other places important to community life. Its straightforward composition and simplified perspective connect it to Canadian folk art traditions, where artists often sought to preserve the memory of places and ways of life that were changing or disappearing. As a result, the painting serves not only as a work of art, but also as a historical record of one of High Prairie's early landmarks and its role in the community.

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The Town of High Prairie acknowledges Treaty 8 territory, the ancestral and traditional territory of the Cree, Dene and Métis. We acknowledge the many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples whose footsteps have marked these lands for generations, including the many places you are joining us from. We are grateful for the many Traditional Knowledge Keepers and Elders who are still with us today and those who have gone before us. Our recognition of this land is an act of reconciliation and an expression of our gratitude to those whose territory we reside on, or are visiting.