The Second Famous Poem

Although as a poet, he was prolific, Robert Service has always been best known for The Shooting of Dan McGrew as in the previous posting.   But his second well known poem with
 the grizzly title of The Cremation of Sam McGee is equally well known among his followers.   In fact it was once recorded spoken by none other than Johnny Cash.   Here it is for your delight:

 

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.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way that he'd "sooner live in hell".

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
"It's the cursed cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'tain't being dead -- it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."

A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say:
"You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.

In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows -- O God! how I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May".
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared -- such a blaze you seldom see;

And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.
Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; . . . then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm --
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."

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

 



The Yukon calls

Robert Service was a dispirited man.   He had failed getting into university, been rejected when he applied for a clerical job, was fed up with farming and uninterested in work that had no prospects.   All he now had was a reference from the Commercial Bank of Scotland.   Fortunately, this got him work.   Meeting a biscuit salesman he had known from his storekeeping days, he was encouraged to walk into a nearby branch of the Canadian Bank of Commerce to ask for a job.   He was hired!   His pay was $50 a month and he lived over the bank where he was additionally employed as guard.   After six months his salary was increased to $60 a month.   He was now sent to the bank's office in Kamloops in central British Columbia.

 

 Kamloops was cattle country with wide open spaces and summer temperatures often exceeding 100 Fahrenheit.   He took to this new life and bought himself a pony which he rode home from many social engagements. He also purchased a banjo which he learned to play.   Books had become something on the back burner just then.   One day he was called into the branch manager's office to be told he was being posted to the Whitehorse branch in the Yukon.   This news was excellent.   The Yukon was a location that said the bank valued him highly.   It was a much sought after placement as far as the bank staff were concerned.   As part of the appointment he received an outfit allowance that led to his buying a coonskin coat.   It was at the end of 1904 that Service took ship for the Alaskan port of Skagway, gateway to the Yukon.   He was to become inextricably linked to the Yukon.   This was the start of an amazing story.

The discovery on the North American continent of precious metals led to strikes prompting "rushes" in Colorado, Nevada and California.   As time went on the prospectors moved north, followed by traders, prostitutes and gamblers.   In 1880 gold was discovered in Juneau in Alaska.   Other finds in the area eventually saw over 200 miners prospecting or operating in the Yukon by the mid eighties.   The Yukon was 180,000 square miles of country named after the river that flowed from 15 miles inland of the Pacific Ocean through a tortuous course of 2,000 miles to join the Bering Sea.   The thickest gold deposit was to be found in the Klondike Valley.   In 1896 George Washington Carmack discovered gold on the Rabbit Creek, later to be renamed Bonanza.   About 100,000 men set out, following the news of the great find.   The real money had already been made by those prospectors who had found the mineral in the first place.   Many men and horses died as they tried to make their way, carrying huge amounts of equipment and supplies.   The Mounties insisted on them taking three months supplies before they would allow them to make the journey.

 

By the time Robert Service arrived to make the journey a narrow gauge railway had been built.  It was snowing so hard that he saw only a little of the scenery from the train.   Soon he arrived at Whitehorse station and was able to find lodgings with his branch manager, Mr Degex.   This was winter and the level of business at the bank was quiet.   Robert was able to spend much time exploring the surrounding countryside, getting to know it well.   Life changed dramatically as spring came and workers poured in for the summer months.  A year was crammed into the four summer months and life was manic.    During the winter, Robert Service, in the prime where fitness was concerned took long walks - not strolls along leafy lanes.   It was hard and challenging but he loved it.   It was easy to get lost in a country inhabited by grizzle Bears and huge moose.   Many have died over the years in this harsh environment.

 

His walking provided not just exercise but material for his later writings.   Although he was a man who relished his own company he began to relish being the centre of attention at social functions.   He was persuaded to become a deacon at the Episcopalian church in Whitehorse.  Minutes of meetings there can be still seen in his handwriting.   But at the regular social functions his renditions of Gunga Din and the Face on the Barroom Floor began to get stale.   He began writing short plays for local performance.   His ability to write was noted by Stroller White, the editor of the Whitehorse Star.   He it was who persuaded Service to write something with a local flavour.   The result was The Shooting of Dan Mcgrew.   It was to launch his amazing career as a poet.

 

 

The Shooting of Dan McGrew

 

THE SHOOTING OF DAN McGREW by Robert William Service A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon; The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune; Back at the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew, And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou. When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the glare, There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog dirty, and loaded for bear. He looked like a man with a foot in the grave, and scarcely the strength of a louse, Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks on the house. There was none could place the stranger's face, though we searched ourselves for a clue; But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew. There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell; And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell; With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done, As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one. Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do, And I turned my head -- and there watching him was the lady that's known as Lou. His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze, Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wondering gaze. The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool, So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool. In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway; Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands -- my God! but that man could play! Were you ever out in the great alone, when the moon was awful clear, And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear; With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold, A half-dead thing in the stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold; While high overhead, green, yellow and red, the North Lights swept in bars -- Then you've got a hunch what the music meant ... hunger and night and the stars. And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans; But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means; For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above; But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowned with a woman's love; A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true-- (God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge, -- the lady that's known as Lou.) Then all of a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear; But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear; That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil's lie; That your guts were gone, and the best of you was to crawl away and die. 'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair, and it thrilled you through and through -- "I guess I'll make it a spread misere," said Dangerous Dan McGrew. The music almost died away ... then it burst like a pent-up flood; And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay," and my eyes were blind with blood. The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash, And the lust awoke to kill, to kill ... then the music stopped with a crash, And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way; In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway; Then his lips went in in a kind of a grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm; And, "Boys," says he, "you don't know me, and none of you care a damn; But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I'll bet my poke they're true, That one of you is a hound of hell ... and that one is Dan McGrew." Then I ducked my head, and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark; And a woman screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark; Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew, While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the Lady that's known as Lou. These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know; They say that the stranger was crazed with "hooch," and I'm not denying it's so. I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two-- The woman that kissed him -- and pinched his poke -- was the lady that's known as Lou.

Here ends today's offering.   Come back later for more about my amazing relative!

A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;

The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;

Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,

And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.

 

When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the glare,

There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear.

He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse,

Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.

There was none could place the stranger's face, though we searched ourselves for a clue;

But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.

 

There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell;

And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell;

With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,

As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one.

Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do,

And I turned my head — and there watching him was the lady that's known as Lou.

 

His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze,

Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.

The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool,

So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool.

In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;

Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands — my God! but that man could play.

 

Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,

And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear;

With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,

A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;

While high overhead, green, yellow and red, the North Lights swept in bars? —

Then you've a hunch what the music meant. . . hunger and night and the stars.

 

And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans,

But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;

For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;

But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowned with a woman's love —

A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true —

(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge, — the lady that's known as Lou.)

 

Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear;

But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear;

That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil's lie;

That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die.

'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair, and it thrilled you through and through —

"I guess I'll make it a spread misere", said Dangerous Dan McGrew.

 

The music almost died away ... then it burst like a pent-up flood;

And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay," and my eyes were blind with blood.

The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,

And the lust awoke to kill, to kill ... then the music stopped with a crash,

And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way;

In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;

Then his lips went in in a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm,

And "Boys," says he, "you don't know me, and none of you care a damn;

But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I'll bet my poke they're true,

That one of you is a hound of hell. . .and that one is Dan McGrew."

 

Then I ducked my head, and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark,

And a woman screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark.

Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew,

While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the lady that's known as Lou.

 

These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know.

They say that the stranger was crazed with "hooch," and I'm not denying it's so.

I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two —

The woman that kissed him and — pinched his poke — was the lady that's known as Lou.

 

Arrival in Canada

Robert Service visited Kilwinning to say goodbye to his aunts and that was the moment that he seemed to lose interest in his family.   He travelled steerage to Canada and took the train across the great country.   It was then that he began to appreciate the costs involved as he sold off goods and chattels to pay for food.   In the Cowichan valley he lived for the first six months with a Shetland couple, Mr & Mrs Colvin.   After this he moved to live on a remote ranch with a man her called Hank.   Here he spend an enjoyable year working hard, learning to play the banjo and reading copious old magazines.   His next employment was on a much larger ranch whose owner, George Corfield, a Cornishman, eventually bought up almost the entire land surrounding Cowichan Bay.   Robert's work was with the cows and this could entail 16 hours a day.

 

In 1897 the open road was calling and he set off towards warmer climes in Seattle.   He did not stay long and moved on to San Francisco.   It was not before he set off south to Mexico.   He walked barefoot much of the time to save shoe leather.   This was his aimless period, drifting here and there.   Along the way he befriended a young bot on his way home from school.   The boy remarked on his "funny" way of speaking which Service explained as the remains of his Scottish accent.   The boy told him that his family came from Ayrshire and his father was an avid reader of Robert Burns.   "What's your name son?" asked Robert.   "Jimmy Service" was the reply.   "Why don't you come home with me and meet my folks?"   Service declined, not wishing to risk making contact with family who would discover how he was and where he was.

He now decided to retrace his steps and return to British Columbia, travelling the wild lands of Utah, Arizona and Colorado.   He kept body and soul together by taking odd jobs along the way.   As he crossed the Tehachapi mountains he suffered a severe blow.   He was walking along a trestle viaduct when he heard a train behind him.   In his haste to get clear he unhooked his pack and saw it, with his beloved guitar, take passage to the bottom of the gorge.   This made up his mind to continue with all speed to Vancouver Island and Cowichan Valley.

 

On his return he found employment once more as cowman on the same ranch as he had been before his wandering.   After six months he was asked to become store man and postmaster for his employer, George Corfield.  This is what Service said of this change in employment: "Once again a white collar man.   How happy I was!   I wanted to sing and dance.   On Monday I was hustling sixteen hours a day.   On Tuesday I was watching others hustle and getting the same pay for it."   He had his own room over the store.   He was in heaven!   He soon joined the local tennis club.   He was a popular member of local society and found himself invited to many parties and events.   There he would sing and recite to the enjoyment of all.

 

After three years he became bored with his job.   It was comfortable but there were no prospects for advancement.   By now he had saved 200 dollars and surprised Corfield by resigning and taking a peacefully located shack where he began studies to get into university.   He took the matriculation exams and failed.   So there he was at the age of thirty, dispirited, a misfit and a dreamer.   he was at the end of his tether.

From the beginning

Robert William Service has a place in my family tree.   He is my fourth cousin, twice removed.   A few years ago, another family tree member in Australia told me I was related to this person.   Only recently have I done any research concerning Robert Service.   The net result has been to increase the entries in my family tree to over 1,000.   It has been a fascinating piece of research, conducted during an exacerbation of COPD that lasted two weeks.   Taking cortico steroids as part of my treatment meant finding myself sleepless during the night.   So I read up on Robert Service!

My name is Keith Alexander.   The Alexanders, from whom I am descended, came from Kilwinning, Ayrshire, Scotland.   The Service family also hails from Kilwinning.   Robert was born in Preston, Lancashire, not that far from my home town of Nelson.   His father had been sent there to work in a local branch of the bank who employed him.   Three years after Robert's birth, Robert senior (Senior Service?) became an insurance agent.   Within a few years Robert was sent to live with his aunts back in Kilwinning where his grandfather was the local postmaster.   On his sixth birthday he was to compose the following Grace:

God bless the cakes and bless the jam;

Bless the cheese and the cold boiled ham:

Bless the scones Aunt Jeannie makes,

And save us all from bellyaches. Amen

 

 

When he left school he was given a post with the Commercial Bank of Scotland, now part of the Royal Bank of Scotland.   He was soon pursuing a career in a branch of the bank in Glasgow.   But he had itchy feet and started to look for pastures new.   Having decided to emigrate to Canada, he went to the office of his branch manager and told him of his plans.   His manage aid, "You know if you serve another forty years you may retire on  a pension?   I only wish I had your years lad.   Then, by God, I'd go along with you!"

 

For reasons that no one can tell, he made for the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island.   It wasn't the place one would expect a budding cowboy would choose.   From this point his life would become one of hardship and long hours of work, but he relished it.   Later he would endure hardships beyond the imagination of ordinary people.   Believe me, this is an extraordinary story that will follow throughout this blog.