Robert William Service who
became known as the bard of the Yukon was born in England in 1874. At the
age of five he arrived in Kilwinning, Ayrshire to live with his three maiden aunts
and his paternal grandfather who was the postmaster there. Robert Service is said to have composed his first poem there on his sixth
birthday.
When Robert’s family moved from Preston to Glasgow he
left Kilwinning to join them, he was then nine. He completed his education
at Glasgow University and became a bank clerk. Always interested in North
America Robert resigned from the bank and headed for Montreal from
Glasgow.
He arrived during the Klondike era, amidst the height of the Gold Rush and
while there, published his most notable piece "The Cremation of Sam
McGee" The following is from his autobiography and tells what
inspired him to write it:
One evening I was at a loose end, so I thought I’d
call on a girl friend. When I arrived at the house I found a party in
progress. I would have backed out, but was pressed to join the festive
band. As an uninvited guest I consented to nibble a nut. Peeved at my
position, I was staring gloomily at a fat fellow across the table. He was
a big mining man from Dawson and he scarcely acknowledged his introduction
to a little bank clerk. Portly and important, he was smoking a big cigar
with gilt band. Suddenly he said: I'll tell you a story Jack London never
got." Then he spun a yarn of a man who cremated his pal. It had a
surprise climax which occasioned much laughter. I did not join, for
remember how a great excitement usurped me. Here was a perfect ballad
subject. The fat man who ignored me went his way to bankruptcy, but he had
pointed me the road to fortune.
A prey to feverish impatience, I excused myself and took my leave. It was
one of those nights of brilliant moonlight that almost goad me to madness.
I took the woodland trail, my mind seething with excitement and a strange
ecstasy. As I started in: There are strange things done in the midnight
sun, verse after verse developed with scarce a check. As I clinched my
rhymes I tucked the finished stanza away in my head and tackled; the next.
For six hours I tramped those silver glades, and when I rolled happily
into bed my ballad was cinched. Next day, with scarcely any effort of
memory I put it on paper. Word and rhyme came eagerly to heel. My
moonlight improvisation was secure and, though I did not know it,
"McGee was to be the keystone of my success.
The Cremation of
Sam McGee
The
Shooting of Dan McGrew
