The white land locked tight as a drum,
The cold fears that follows and finds you,
The silence that bludgeons you dumb,
Robert Service
The Spell of the Yukon
On a Christmas day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold!through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close , then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see.
It wasn't much fun , but the only one to whimper was Sam Magee.
Robert Service
The Cremation of Sam Magee
We are in a severe cold spell so I thought I would use some poetry to provide some color. The high today was minus 26 C ( minus 12 F) . Tonight's low will be minus 36 (minus 37 F). To make things worse there has been some wind. I'm warm when I'm outside except for my face. I had a lab appointment at 8:30 this morning and in the two block walk it was cold on the face .
Now Canada claims Robert Service as our poet. Robert Service was born in England and came to North America and lived from Mexico the Vancouver Island. Service began working in a bank on Vancouver Island and went from Whitehorse to Dawson City. They had to make their own entertainment and Service wrote a poem each week and recited it at their weekly concerts. These poems were a great hit.
About 1912 Service left Canada, went to France and lived there for much of the rest of his life. He wrote much poetry. He also spent some time in Hollywood during the second World war and entertained troops.
What I like about Service is that Canadians claim him as their poet but he lived in Canada for less than ten years. Many Canadians think that Service lived his whole life in the little log cabin in Dawson City. This cabin is a tourist attraction that is very popular.
So no matter if one of our favorite poets didn't live here, it's still cold. Check out Robert Service. He wrote some neat poems.
