Cremation of Sam McGee, The

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From the glory days of the Gold Rush when fortunes and legends were made and lost on the turn of a card, generations of dreamers in Europe and America have been fascinated by the romance and mystery of the Yukon. Yet no one has more evocatively captured the allure in the land of the midnight sun than Robert Service in his most famous poem the Cremation of Sam McGee. And perhaps nothing has more compellingly portrayed the ice in the Arctic air or the electrifying impact of the northern lights than the haunting paintings of Ted Harrison. What better combination then, than these two northern legends!

"It is a joy to see these two unique talents combined. They have so much in common: a sense of discovery, a brashness, and a feeling of joie de vivre that is to be heard in the driving force of the Service narratives and seen in the dazzling vibrations of the Harrison art:" - Pierre Becton

Robert William Service was born in Preston, England in 1874. After spending his childhood in Scotland he emigrated to Canada at the age of twenty. He traveled widely and by 1905 had joined the ranks or the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. His postings in Whitehorse and Dawson City in the Yukon provided him with the opportunity to witness first hand the rugged lives of the miners, trappers, and hunters which he immortalised in verse. After an eight year sojourn in the frozen north he travelled the Pacific coast of Mexico. He was an ambulance driver in World War I and fled France on the heels of the Nazi invasion in World War II. After the war he returned to France and died in Monte Carlo in 1958 thus ending a life of wanderlust and adventure which spawned his greatest work in the Canadian north.