Robert Service: Under the Spell of the Yukon

One hundred years ago, a shy bank clerk sent a collection of his poems south from the Yukon to be privately published and shared with a small group of friends. Fate intervened, however, and Robert Service, Sam McGee and Dan McGrew became household names across North America and throughout the British Commonwealth.

Service spent the decade prior to the First World War sating his wanderlust by travelling across North America. His adventures included a trip that ranks as one of the great n…