October Daily 28:

 

Yukon River seen from the Dome above Dawson City - photo taken at 9:30 pm on August 3

"There are strange things done in the midnight sun

by the men who moil for gold;

the Arctic trails have their secret tales

that would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

I cremated Sam McGee."

So begins Robert Service's famous poem set in the Yukon about a poor southern fellow who traveled north in search of gold, died, and was happily cremated because he was finally warm. 

Robert Service was a banker, born in England, who traveled to Canada and worked in Victoria, BC, where a local restaurant "The Bard and Banker" operates in the former bank building where he worked. He was transferred to Whitehorse, Yukon and worked there for a number of years, and wrote verse on the side. Sam McGee was a real person, but not from Tennessee, nor was he cremated on the shores of Lake Lebarge. McGee's original cabin stands on the grounds of a museum in Whitehorse. Robert Service heard his name one day and asked if he could use it in a verse he wanted to write. Service pieced together snippets of conversation he'd overheard, added poetic license and a local setting, and so created the ballad of Sam McGee.

After some time in Whitehorse, Robert Service moved to Dawson City, the center of the Klondike Gold Rush, and worked in the bank there. It is said that so much gold passed through this building that when it was renovated gold dust was collected from beneath the floor boards. 

Robert Service wrote a number of poems, or verse, as he called his writings about Yukon life and became known as the "Bard of the Yukon". He sent a collection of his poems back to England for self-publishing, but they became so popular and sold so well that he quit working in the bank and dedicated his days to writing.

He rented this small two-room cabin on Eighth Street in Dawson City and wrote, tacking large sheets of newsprint to the walls on which to lay out his verse. The cabin is now maintained by Parks Canada. 

Robert Service left the Yukon and moved to France where he married and continued to write. He served in the first World War as an ambulance driver and medic, having not been accepted as a soldier because of "varicose veins" at age 40. 

St. Paul's Anglican Church was well-established by the time Robert Service lived in Dawson City. It, and other buildings of the Klondike Gold Rush, have been restored to give visitors a glimpse into life as it once was.

Have you read or heard The Cremation of Sam McGee?