19

Beach Change
Circa 1960
Main Beach, Atton's Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada

Credits:
Haight, Gloria

20

Plane Ride at Regatta
Circa 1960
Main Beach, Atton's Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada

Credits:
Haight, Gloria

21

Cub Camp

Bill Routledge and Don Haight looked after the camp for quite a few years. There were other helpers as well. They slept in tents and for meals would go down the hill to the Haight cabin. Later on they built a cook house and bath house. Now the area is owned by scouts.

22

Cubs coming down the hill for dinner at the Haight Cabin
Circa 1960
Atton's Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada

Credits:
Haight, Gloria

23

Cubs at the Camp
Circa 1960
Scout Camp Site

Credits:
Haight, Gloria

24

Cubs Eating at Haight Cabin
Circa 1960
Atton's Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada

Credits:
Haight, Gloria

25

Cleanup after Cub Dinner
Circa 1960
Atton's Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada

Credits:
Haight, Gloria

26

Cub Camp
Circa 1960
Scout Camp Site

Credits:
Haight, Gloria

27

Booth Operators 1961
1961
Atton's Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada

Credits:
Haight, Gloria

28

Personal Reflections of Atton's Lake
by David W. Routledge

When I get overwhelmed with my life and living in Toronto I think back on a place and a time where I felt safe, loved and secure. It is at those times that my thoughts go to Atton's Lake. In my mind's eye I am sitting on the patio of the cabin (#57) with my special mug in my hand drinking coffee with my Grandma Haight (Verla Haight nee: Armitage) in her rocking chair beside me. There are pots and pots of flowers on the patio and passer bys often stopped to talk to Grandma. Most often I became the coffee maker and server for these impromptu coffee klatches.

Every morning before anyone else got up Grandma and I would meet on the patio. We would read a passage from a morning meditation book that I had and then we would take turns sharing what the passages meant to us. My Grandma was a birth right Quaker. Sitting there listening to the birds singing and to my Grandma talking about her spiritual life helped me to formulate my own personal belief system. We never did this anywhere else but at the lake.
When I was a young boy my Grandmother Haight would gather all of her grandchildren together and take them to the lake. We were the second generation of Haight's to go to the lake. My mother (Ruth Routledge nee: Haight) and her siblings used to go to the lake in the 30's. Initially they used a tent as there were no cabins, and then later my Grandpa (Walter) Haight would hook up the caboose that he used for harvesting to a tractor. He would drag this up to the lake and for a few months this became the family cabin. At the end of the summer he would take it back to the farm in time for harvesting.

Whenever my mother talked about those times she always had a smile on her face. I think that the summers at the lake were one of the reasons that my mother and her siblings were good friends all of their lives. That caboose is now in the Unity museum. My uncle, Don Haight moved it. The caboose had stood in one spot for likely fifty years and when my Uncle Don hooked up the caboose everyone thought it would fall apart or not move. Uncle Don said (with a note of pride) that the "old girl" started moving as if it had been transported regularly. Everyone was sad to see it go except for me (but that is another story).

Grandma would often have six or more young kids running around all the time. How she managed I do not know. As we grew our friends also became part of Grandma Haight's lake family. I want to tell three stories about the lake to share some of my memories. The first happened in the late fifties. (See Picture). There was no running water and with all those kids Grandma went through a lot of water every day. She was certainly innovative because she got an old baby carriage and put a cream can in it. Then she got some binder twine and made a harness out of it and hooked the older grandkids up to it. Every morning we had to hook up the "dogs" to the dogsled and take the empty cream can down to the pump. There would be a can full of water there to prime the pump. Once the pump was primed we took turns pumping so we could fill the cream can with water. We then got to get back into harness and bring the water home. I was the oldest so I had to steer it as well as do my share of the pushing and pumping - but I also got to wield the binder twine whip! We were very enthusiastic about doing this and sometimes the speed with which we came back was great. Often when we tried to get the carriage up the small hill by the cabin the carriage would tip spilling the contents of the can. So we would have to repeat the process. The interesting thing is that Grandma made a game of it and we all thought it was wonderful fun and could hardly wait to "get into harness". People in the picture are from the front: Eric Morrison, Joan Morrison, Dan Routledge, Ron Routledge, David Routledge and Verla Haight.

29

Haulin' Water
Circa 1958
Atton's Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada

Credits:
Routledge, David

30

The second story I wanted to share is about my Grandpa Haight. He would come and help Grandma close up the cabin at the end of the year. The hill to the lake was much steeper, more windy and (in my eyes) more dangerous then. Mom tells stories of when she was a kid they had to go up the hill backwards as the older cars did not have the power to go uphill in forward. Grandpa would have a carload of grandchildren in the back seat of the car and he would pretend half way up the hill that the car was not going to make it up. He would make the car jerk, slow down to almost a crawl and say how worried he was that the car was not going to make it up the hill. He told the kids in the back seat to push the back of the front seat and those in the front had to push the dashboard to help the car get up the hill. How hard we pushed to help our Grandpa up the hill! We fell for this year after year. When my nephew, William was younger he took his turn as well at pushing the car up the hill. When we got to the top we were all thrilled that the car had made it up the hill. Grandpa would then say "Turn around kids and say Good bye to the lake". He knew full well that we would realize that the summer was over and we would not see the lake for a whole year. He knew he would have a car load of crying kids. I can still remember Grandma saying "Oh Walter!!".

When the parents and the friends came there was always a large crowd. The dishes seemed never ending. In an attempt to deal with this one year Grandma said that we should each pick one cup and use it all day rather than a different one each time we had a drink. By this time I was 14 or 15. I remember going to Battleford which for us small town kids was a trip to the big city. I was drinking coffee by that time and all the adults also had to use only one cup. So on one of the trips to North Battleford I bought "my" cup - it has a palm tree on it. Nobody dared drink out of my cup. If some newcomer accidentally did everyone would tell them to be careful as that was David's cup. The first thing I do when I get to the lake now is look for my cup, and at the end of my visit I wash the cup and put it at the back of the cupboard so no one else will use it while I am away. The cup is probably 45 years old now (I had to do that subtraction again as it did not seem possible it had been that long). The cup now has a crack in it (and if I find out who did it....) and I truly believe that when that cup breaks it will be the last year that I go to the lake.

31

Buried in Sand
Circa 1960
Main Beach, Atton's Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada

Credits:
Haight, Gloria

32

Atton's lake still has the best beach and clearest waters of any lake I have been to. I could talk about much more - finding a bullet from the Riel Rebellion on Cut Knife Hill, going on the Ghost road and how scary that was, trips to the North Battleford Fair, diving off the high diving board for the first time, teaching swimming at the lake, getting to reconnect with the Cut Knife kids every year and trying to figure out how to spend our 10 cents a day are all wonderful memories.