We are getting ready to head up to the cold north this week on our trip to Victoria BC and I am reminded Of my trip to Alaska where I discovered the poems of Robert Service.
It was in Whitehorse Yukon Territory when we stopped and visited a museum that I read my first Robert Service poem "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" it was painted on the wooden plank walls of the small space the museum occupied. It was 1904 in Whitehorse that Robert Service wrote this poem. Whitehorse began in 1897 as a campground for prospectors on their way to join the Klondike Gold Rush. Service had been transferred to this location by his employer the Canadian Bank Of Commerce when they decided to open a branch in this booming town of gold prospectors.The opening line reads "A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon" it is said he thought up this opening line while out walking the streets of Whitehorse where he could hear the revelry from the saloon.
It wasn't until we reached Dawson City Yukon Territory where I heard more if his poems when we visited his cabin there. Service was transferred to this location In 1908 when the Canadian Bank of Commerce opened a branch in this even newer Klondike boomtown.
My favorite poem of his is "The Cremation of Sam McGee" you can listen to it here on YouTube as Johnny Cash recites it.
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