Summertime in Canada, especially for children, is often portrayed as a series of long, carefree days spent exploring the outdoors, playing in and on the water and spending time with friends and family.
While this is certainly not how the season plays out for everyone, the Matheson children of Vancouver would seem to have come close to the quintessential summer vacation from 1927 to 1934.
In 2011, the Whistler Museum received an account of their summers at Alta Lake from Betty Jane Warner, the youngest of the three Matheson children. Every year the Matheson family would spend two months renting one of William "Mac" MacDermott's three cabins (the same cabins later lived in by Bob and Flo Williamson and the descendants of Grace Woollard).
The final days of June would see Betty Jane, her siblings Jack and Claudia, her mother Violet and, in some years, a maid board the Union Steamship in downtown Vancouver bound, eventually, for Alta Lake. The family did not travel light—they brought a steam trunk and five bags—but unfailingly, Mac would meet them at the PGE station and see them and their luggage to what Betty Jane called their "summer cottage."
This cottage consisted of a sleeping porch, a small sitting area, a kitchen complete with wood stove, and two bedrooms. Mac provided use of a shared icehouse and woodpile and each of his three cabins came equipped with its own outhouse.
As Betty Jane recalled, "We loved Alta Lake and looked forward to our happy times each summer—no matter how basic our living conditions were compared to our city living."
It's easy to see why they looked forward to summer. The three children took walks around the lake picking ripe blueberries, rowed among the water lilies and dragonflies, and joined Mac on treks to Lost Lake and Green Lake where "there were always rotting old logs to climb over and the threat of lots of bees!"
Over the years they got to know their summer neighbours and packed picnics for train excursions with permanent Alta Lake residents. With the nearest store at Rainbow Lodge, even going out to get groceries could be an adventure.
Baths in the copper tub were reserved for Saturday nights and few days required dressing up. Once every summer Betty Jane and Claudia rowed up the lake for tea at Mrs. Harrop's tearoom, requiring them to "shed our blue denim coveralls for something a little more dressy to wear for the occasion."
The Matheson family chose Alta Lake after their father, Robert, met Mac and the Philips while staying at Rainbow Lodge with Violet and became "enchanted with the area."
He was unable to join his family in the summers and remained in Vancouver where he worked as an architect. His firm, Townley & Matheson, designed quite a few buildings still standing in Vancouver today, including Vancouver Motors, the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club, Point Grey Secondary and Vancouver City Hall.
It was after his death in 1935 that the Matheson family stopped coming to Alta Lake and, according to Betty Jane, "our happy summers came to an end."
