The Lake Hauto Experience

A Pictorial Essay

by Marcia Evans

Lake Hauto started out as a hydroelectric dam for Pennsylvania Power and Light. Every summer, PP&L allowed locals from surrounding towns to rent summer camping lots along its shores for a dollar. I anticipated my family’s weekly trips to the dam where I awoke to bird calls and the smell of bacon on an outdoor fire.

Even brushing my teeth became an adventure when it involved seeking out the nearest stream for my water source. About 1960, the dam was sold to a real estate developer and our idyllic summers ended when campfires were replaced with one-third-of-an-acre building lots zoned residential.

About 1978, I had the opportunity to move back home again. Instead of choosing one of the area’s small towns, my husband, children and I moved into a brick ranch at Lake Hauto within walking distance of the shore. Since that day, my infatuation with this place has grown into a full-blown love affair.

Our first year felt like a constant vacation. I marveled at the colors of fall, more brilliant than I had ever remembered. I appreciated the cozy silence of winter, snuggled up to my wood stove watching the snowfall. We have adventured in every inch of this place. We have caught native trout in Meadow Run, the main rill coming off a hollow that feeds the lake. We have eaten our fill of warm huckleberry pies made with freshly picked berries from the south shore. We have ventured into the sinister “canal,” a water channel left over from the old hydroelectric plant, overgrown with water weeds and dragonflies. We have ground worms in a blender to feed baby birds abandoned by their mother. We have slept out under the stars and watched the meteor showers on a warm August night.

When I studied Wordsworth’s “…Tintern Abbey,” I could relate to his “spots of time “ in nature. The lake has given me security and taught me trust. I know that no matter how tired, depressed, or disillusioned I become with the man-made world, I only need turn to my unconditional friend to find the peace I so desperately seek.

…Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her: ’tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy…
-excerpt from “…Tintern Abbey”

The Anima Mundi – World Soul

…And I have felt
A Presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of far more something deeply interfused,
whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky,and in the minds of
men….

Meadow Run – A Spot in Time

…Oh! How oft –
In darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beating of my heart –
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
O sylvan Wye!…