Cliff Hamilton of Gull Lake

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Gull Lake has had its share of unique citizens, and throughout the surrounding area there were plenty of early settlers with surprising talents. One such individual was Cliff Hamilton, who came to Gull Lake with his wife Maude in 1910, all the way from England. His brother Joe was already in the area and had established the power plant, the lumber yard and the hardware store, which Cliff took over. His other brother Tony operated a large sheep ranch on part of the old 76 south of town. Tony was one of the first in the area to begin using crop rotation to create a healthier crop.

Prior to arriving in Gull Lake, Cliff had graduated from Bede College and spent a year in France living on a scholarship.

Cliff and Maude first lived down in the settler’s quarter section, just east of the CPR depot. During their first winter there, it was quite the test but the couple survived, with Cliff commuting to town by foot, ski or horse during the winter. One evening, while walking back from Gull Lake after closing the hardware store, he quickly found out that his fur-lined coat was no match for the howling winter wind, so he went back to the store and wrapped his legs with brown paper, which made the difference in his walk home.

Living in the settler’s quarters, there were often transients coming through, some who were not quite along the lines of the law. As a result, Maude would often keep a silver handgun on the piano just in case someone came by while Cliff was away. One time, Cliff came home with a stranger who had just been released from the penitentiary. The man said he was walking to the B.C. coast to deal with the man who put him in the penitentiary. Nonetheless, he was quite nice and sang hymns at the piano into the night, leaving the next day. Transients were also attracted to the light of the house occasionally and would show up, thinking the house was a different sort of business. One night, two men showed up thinking the Hamilton home was a brothel. Maude had to tell the two men, through a locked door while holding her gun, that it was not such a house.

Eventually, the family decided to move to town rather than stay in the settler’s quarters. Hiring a team of horses, they transported the little home to town. Everything went well until the house got stuck on the railway tracks. They were able to alert the engineer of the non-stop Canada Silk Train, which stopped in time and sat there for half an hour as the house slowly became unstuck from the tracks.

Going back to Cliff, he was very active with the Elks and the Masonic Lodge, serving as the Lecturing Knight and Master. When radio came along, Cliff was completely in his element thanks to being scientifically inclined. He was able to make a heterodyne receiver, the first ever seen in the entire southwest area of Saskatchewan. On one test during an evening, he was able to get through to someone on a ship that was sailing 500 miles south of Honolulu. With his own homemade radio, the family was able to listen by headset to the radio until he installed large conetype speakers that hung on the walls.

In addition to playing around with electronics, a budding technology, Cliff also served as the Secretary-Treasurer for the Gull Lake School Board for 20 years. Cliff was also fluent in French, and would have long conversations with Father Alfred Bacciochi, who would come into the store to talk with Cliff.

Cliff passed away in December of 1940.