Robert Service

Robert Service (1874–1958) was a Scottish-Canadian poet and writer. He wrote hundreds of stories, poems, memoirs, and songs that were published in dozens of compilations. He is best known for "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee." As a young man, Robert traveled the West, from Mexico to the Yukon, living as a hobo or working odd jobs while writing about what he saw and heard. After this, he lived in Whitehorse and Dawson City in the Yukon, where the recent Klondike Gold Rush inspired him to preserve that history through poems and stories based on stories he heard from those who had been through it. It was during this period that he wrote one of his most iconic poems, "The Spell of the Yukon." He died in France at the age of 84.