Robert W. (Robert William) Service

Born in Preston, England, in 1874 and raised largely in Scotland, Robert W. Service worked in banking before emigrating to Canada as a young man. After years of travel and rough living in North America, he eventually reached the Yukon, where the people, stories, and atmosphere of the North gave him the material that made him famous.

Service became best known for dramatic, highly readable ballads such as The Shooting of Dan McGrew and The Cremation of Sam McGee. Collections including Songs of a Sourdough and Ballads of a Cheechako made him enormously popular with general readers, who loved his gift for strong rhythms, vivid scenes, and memorable storytelling.

Though critics did not always place him among the major literary poets of his time, his appeal lasted for decades. He also wrote novels and memoirs, and he spent much of his later life in France, where he died in 1958.