People/writer

Robert Service

Robert Service (born 1874), writer, from United Kingdom. Linked to gold.

The lucky break

Took a bank job in Whitehorse in 1904 and then in Dawson City, where he turned the tall tales of '98 into verse. Songs of a Sourdough (London, 1907) let him become a full-time writer.1

Legacy

Called the Bard of the Yukon. The Shooting of Dan McGrew and The Cremation of Sam McGee became two of the most memorised poems in English. He was never a prospector.1

There's a land where the mountains are nameless, And the rivers all run God knows where

Robert Service1

Story cards

Drag to turn the globe

Where next

People

Partner ofJack LondonTwo writers who gave the Klondike its literature.1

Mines

InspiredKlondike (Bonanza Creek)A bank clerk who never prospected wrote the poems the Klondike is remembered by.1

Places

Worked atDawson CityA bank clerk in Dawson City turned the tall tales of '98 into verse.1

Sources

  1. Gold Rush Writers US National Park Service, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Super Pit, Kalgoorlie by Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0; Underground mining equipment by Kaupo Kikkas, CC BY-SA 4.0. Pictures: Gold prospectors constructing a long box with a filter for panning gold. Process print after H.M. Paget, 1899., Henry Marriott Paget (Public Domain Mark 1.0).