Poetry

The Spell of the Yukon

by Robert W. Service

Robert Service was a bank clerk in Whitehorse when he wrote these ballads of the gold rush, among them The Shooting of Dan McGrew and The Cremation of Sam McGee. He sent them to a Toronto publisher with money to have them printed for his friends, and the publisher sent back the money and a contract instead; they came out in 1907 as Songs of a Sourdough, and in America as The Spell of the Yukon. Sam McGee was a real customer of the bank, whose name Service borrowed, and he lived until 1940.

The librarian

Read it in the Library After Dark Or read it as plain text

Reading time

About 55 minutes

Where to find it

The Canadian Room

Edition

Project Gutenberg, eBook #207. In the public domain in the United States.