Most people today don’t know that Gull Lake once had one of the most active Boy Scout programs in southwest Saskatchewan — and it all began with one man. Scoutmaster Richard H. Sweeting, born in Nassau, Bahamas in 1887, came to Gull Lake in 1915. By the next summer, he was already taking local boys on camping trips, teaching outdoor skills long before Scouts were formally organized here. His son later wrote: “Your boy might make a good citizen without being a Boy Scout, but h

Arriving in a Town Just Beginning When Gull Lake was little more than a scattering of homesteads and a hopeful railway stop, a few determined settlers stepped forward to build the services a town needs long before it officially becomes one. Among those early builders was Jeremiah P. Divine, a man whose work helped shape the foundations of the community we know today. Jeremiah arrived in Gull Lake in 1906, accompanied by his wife and their four children. Like many families of

In the summer of 1906, two young men from North Dakota — Frank and Oscar Busse — set out for Rosetown to look for homestead land. They never made it. The Saskatchewan River was in flood, travel was impossible, and a chance conversation in Swift Current changed the direction of their lives. A locator named Sharpe told them there was still good land available near Gull Lake. Frank agreed to go, and three other travelers—Fred Rushford, Joe Ohlheiser, and Louis Matheson—asked to

Most people who grew up picking rocks east of Gull Lake didn’t expect to one day stand guard over Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. But Gordon Johnston did. Born in 1921 and raised on the Johnston dairy farm on the south edge of town, Gordon spent his childhood between school, chores, and long days helping his dad move horses and machinery out to the “East Place.” He graduated from Gull Lake School in 1941 with one goal he’d carried since junior high—joining the RC

Local History | Gull Lake & Area In the winter of 1906–07, Gull Lake was little more than a ranch headquarters, a CPR station, and a scattering of shanties on the open prairie. It was in this setting — long before the town took shape — that the community welcomed its very first newborn. That winter, the Dalgleish family lived in a small shack on the site that, as of 1965, was occupied by the Erwin Beninger home. Mr. Dalgleish was working as a homestead locator and foreman at

Several late‑1915 events shaped the year that followed. In October 1915, the long-awaited Wadlinger & Balkowski lease was finally opened for homestead entry—a large block of former Crown grazing land northwest of town that many local settlers had waited years to file on. Many residents went to Maple Creek on October 20, 1915, to secure their claims. Only a week later, the district faced what oldtimers remembered as the most disastrous prairie fire ever witnessed here. Beginni