Sibbald Gentleman’s Club
The location is far eastern Alberta and the town is Sibbald. A faded sign taped to the door reads: “Warning, nude entertainers appearing within premises. Some patrons may find this offensive. No minors. Picture ID only. $10.00 cover charge. Sibbald Bar & Hotel.” Did I just read that? This ancient little flop house and watering hole found in a near ghost town had a peeler bar? Am I a player in some Twilight Zone episode? This is about as strange as it gets.
The mind races…
Who was their target customer? The handful of people that live in town? Farmers in the area, all dozen of them? Okay, I really suspect they were hoping to catch passing motorists on the highway, which bypasses town by a bit. “Boy, I’m sure weary from the open road….hey boobies! Stay in the car kids, I’ll be back in an hour!” …and local well paid rig pigs and boys coming in from nearby Saskatchewan where strippers don’t go. Hmmm, maybe there was enough of a market? But…where would the girls come from? The place is literally in the middle of nowhere and I bet off the normal stripper circuit. What did the locals think? Raised eyebrows. Heads shaking. Fingers wagging. So many questions!
The best we can determine, the hotel opened some time before the late 1920s. The bar became a “gentleman’s club” around 2010 and closed recently. The establishment was the last business in town.
To get some back story we attempted to call the number seen on the sign. No one ever answered. Too bad, we’d love to get inside the heads of the former owners. If they’re even still around. This I bet is one bloody interesting story.
Another “questionable” establishment…
The notorious American Hotel.
Short Subjects: reports that for any number of reasons are brief in nature. They might be updates to older articles, previews of posts planned or not yet published, brief snippets of things that don’t fit in anywhere else or subjects that are so obscure that information on them can’t be found.
If you need any more information on what we talked about here, by all means contact us!
Date of adventure: July, 2016.
Location: Sibbald, AB.
The closed Sibbald Hotel, the last business in town, had a strip club.
Across the street, the community hall.
“Nude entertainers appearing within these premises.”
I grew up 45 minutes away, in Saskatchewan where the legal drinking age is 19. Since Alberta’s legal age was 18, we’d go there for the novelty of drinking in a bar. In the late 90’s and early 2000’s there were indeed still strippers. Lol.
If not for that rule, the place could have never existed. Thanks for commenting!
It was more a strip bar they did have strippers once in a while but people came for miles to have a good time there they had live bands there once and a while to and it was a lot farther back than 2010 it was more like the 80″s you do a little more fact finding before you run a story like this.
Careful, the run on sentence police are watching. They nail us all the time. Here’s a few extra periods for you in case they show –> …
Sorry, having some fun.
I don’t doubt for a second the Sibbald Hotel was other things at other times. In the context of this silly little piece, we touch on its last incarnation, that of a peeler bar before it closed for good. And our “facts”, they come straight from the horse’s mouth – a sign plastered to the door placed there by the owners declaring naked girls can be found inside – along with email from those same people giving us the dates mentioned in the article. If strippers had been visiting the bar since the 1980s (if I’m reading your message correctly) it was not mentioned by them. But really, what does it change? And it’s pretty much a given that a place like this would host bands on certain nights. You might find it interesting, but we’re working to get into the Hotel for a more detailed look.
I remember being 15, my friends and I would go for “Sibbald Snifters” after a ballgame or hockey game. This was in the mid 70’s . We came from Alsask. … good times…
A little young, eh? Funny, we used to sneak into bars all the time in our mid-teens too. Never got questioned or carded. Thanks for sharing these memories!
Hey Chris and Connie!
Hadn’t looked at your site for a while and was catching up. This post really caught my eye….my mother lived in Sibbald during the depression and I think she lived in that building! She taught in the 2 room school (12 grades) for the princely sum of $80/month. second year there she was the principal. I’ve passed through Sibbald a couple of times on my prairie rambles. That building seems to match a couple of my mom’s photos.
Norm, so nice to hear from you and be sure to drop by more often! Interesting, that connection. Eighty bucks? Living like a king! Would love to see those pics.
Nice pictures. I recently found out my Great Great Uncle Nels Sletkolen homesteaded in Sibbald Alberta in the early 1900. He died in 1946 in a fire that was of questionable circumstances. He was around 80 at the time. I guess the Royal Mounted Police looked into it but didn’t solve thecrime if it wasn’t an accident.He moved up there from South Dakota where I am from. What an adventure that must of been. I guess the foundation of the cabin he built is still there and he is buried in the town Cemtry. Thanks for the pictures of the town, Allot of towns like that in good old South Dakota. They are farming allot of little towns that used to be nice little communities.
Thanks! Now that’s an interesting connection! One day we’ll make it down to your part of the world. I swear.
Fascinating find!
Reminds me of this little (satirical) gem about PEI’s only strip club closing down:
themanatee.net/peis-only-strip-club-closes-because-patrons-dancers-all-related/
Haha, hilarious! I guess watching a cousin strip could be a buzz-kill. Thanks for commenting!
Hello, I have a relative buried in the Sibbald Community Cemetery. Wondering if anyone who reads this and is from the area might be able to help me. I’m trying to track down information on Minnie Lucy Forshaw’s husband. Minnie passed away in 1922. Her husband’s name was William Forshaw and would have been born around 1895-1900. They had one son, Dwight, but after her passing, he went to live with relatives in Minnesota. Does anyone know of any Forshaw family in or around this area that I might be able to connect with and ask? I’d like to figure out what happened to William. Thank you in advance.
Hope someone responds. If you want, our society can assist you by reaching out to contacts we have in the area. We’re well connected. All it takes is a donation to our group, any amount you like. If interested respond here or send us an email. Good luck.
It was the only place around there to get a drink. Used to visit my sister around Sibbald about 5 mile west of there in the 70’s.
I wonder if they used those ALCB beer glasses with the white fill-line at the time? I think every “beer parlour” of the era had to use them. Thanks for commenting!
I was in the old bar having drinks and the community hall for a family party. Neat piece of history. This was the only business left in Sibbald. Now it truly will be a Ghost Town.
The last business in town, gone.
Shared to Ghost Town Hunters.
As always, big thanks.
Looks like you just missed it. The Google Streetview image from July 2014 shows the place as “Open” in what looks like the middle of the afternoon.
Yup, we just missed out on the fun. I guess it closed not all that long ago. Some say earlier this year.
(via Facebook)
Was still open this past spring.
Yes, I’ve heard that from a few people now.
(via Facebook)
The bar shut down this spring..Pretty hard to make a living running a bar these days.
Doubly so in small community.
When I lived in Alsask, SK (just across the border from Sibbald) in the 80s, the Sibbald Hotel was still operating. Some of the clientelle came from the Canadian Forces Radar Station that operated at Alsask until 1987. From time to time, the Hotel had a “Ladies’ Night,” when they would bring in male strippers. I remember a story about some Alsask women who talked a town matriarch into going for a night out. They did not tell her that the night out was at the Sibbald Hotel. After the show a flustered matriarch is reported to have exclaimed that she had never seen anything like it before. When challenged that she was a married women with children so must have had some familiarity with the subject, she responded, “but never so much!”
This seems to suggest that strippers did were not a recent thing. Hmmmmm. Might have to do some deeper research. What a great story and thanks so much for posting!
Bert Porochnavy (R.I.P) owned this hotel back when it was legit.
Roger May owned it when the strippers were introduced into it. This was the only time this was a peeler bar
I also know who owns the property today but i will not reveal any of this information at this point
Thanks for adding to the story. It’s appreciated. We had someone give us the current owner’s info, but we’ve yet to reach out. We’d love to see the inside.
I actually don’t think they had strippers all the time, I’m pretty sure they would just do a loop and hit all the small towns. I worked with guys who always knew what town they were in.
Peeler radar? Yes, I figured it was only on weekends.
Yes the Hotel was “famous” for its strippers and upstairs activities–the reason it lasted so long was Kids could drink at 18 in AB but 19 in Sask–plus Daylight savings time–they got an extra hour of booze–and then there was the time some smart alec[who shall remain nameless] threw a live skunk in the bar when it was full! fast ‘time gentlemen’ there ever was.
Heaven help me, that’s hilarious! Thanks my friend for sharing this.
Lol it attracts costumers from all over! Saskatchewan does not allow strippers so 18 year old son for miles come as well as the many small towns surrounding the area. The strippers come from calgary edmonton all over….you didn’t think all strippers were local did you lol.
I never considered the SK connection, but it makes sense now. At least a dozen people have messaged us in regards to that. I knew the girls came in from bigger far away cities, of course, just didn’t see how remote strip club would be seen as an attractive place to work for them. But as others have pointed out, we’ve heard from tons of readers, I guess with all the well paid rig types, and those across from just across the border the place was far busier than I would have guessed. Still, seems like such an odd location to find exotic dancers. You have to admit that!