The Cremation of Sam McGee

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"The Cremation of Sam McGee" is among the most famous poems of Robert W. Service (1874-1958). It was published in 1907 in Songs of a Sourdough. It concerns the cremation of a prospector who freezes to death, as told by the man who cremates him.

The Cremation of Sam McGee

The Cremation of Sam McGee Recited by Robert Service

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
      By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
      That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
      But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way that "he'd sooner live in hell."

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 McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
"It's the cursèd cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'tain't being dead—it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."

A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows— O God! how I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May."
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; ... then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."

The Cremation of Sam McGee - Read By Johnny Cash-0

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
      By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
      That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
      But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

Synopsis

The title character, Sam McGee, is from Plumtree, Tennessee. He came to the Yukon, and stays, in the hope of getting rich from the goldrush; but he bitterly hates the cold, declaring that he'd prefer to be in Hell.

The night before his death McGee asks his partner "to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains". The narrator knows that "A pal's last need is a thing to heed", and swears he will not fail to cremate him. After McGee dies the following day, the narrator lashes McGee's body to his sleigh, and begins a trek to the "marge" (shore or edge) of "Lake Lebarge," where he finds a way to perform the promised cremation aboard a derelict steamboat called the Alice May.

There is disagreement about the ending. Wikipedia says that the speaker "discovers Sam's ghost in the makeshift crematorium, enjoying the warmth." However, the story can also be read as a tall tale: that the occupant of the crematorium was Sam himself, miraculously restored to life by the fire.

Background

Although the poem was fiction, it was based on people and things that Robert Service actually saw in the Yukon. There is a real Plumtree, in North Carolina near the Tennessee border; and a real Lake Laberge, formed by a widening of the Yukon River just north of Whitehorse, Yukon, and still used by kayakers.

The Alice May was based on a derelict paddle-wheel steamer, the Olive May. Service based his poem on an experience of his roommate, Dr. Leonard S.E. Sugden, who had cremated a corpse in the firebox of the Olive May. The Olive May, owned by the Bennett Lake & Klondike Navigation Co., had been named for the wife and daughter of Albert Sperry Kerry Sr. It was abandoned after it struck a rock near Tagish, Yukon (about 50 km south of Lake Laberge). Dr. Sugden used its firebox to cremate the body of Cornelius Curtin, who had died of pneumonia. The remains were then shipped to his family for burial.

(Although a boat named Alice May sank on Lake Laberge, that happened a decade after the publication of the poem.)

William Samuel McGee (1868, Lindsay, Ontario - 1940, Beiseker, Alberta) was primarily a road builder but did indulge in some prospecting. Like others, McGee was in San Francisco, California, at the time of the Klondike Gold Rush and in 1898 left for the Klondike.

In 1904, Service, who was working in the Canadian Bank of Commerce (the predecessor of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce) branch in Whitehorse, saw McGee's name on a form. He talked to McGee about using his name and received permission, which is confirmed by correspondence between McGee and his family.(Citation needed)

In 1909 McGee traveled south of the Yukon to build roads, including some in Yellowstone National Park. Eventually, McGee and his wife moved to live with their daughter outside of Beiseker. However, in 1930 McGee returned to the Yukon to try prospecting along the Liard River, but met with no success. He did however return with an urn that he had purchased in Whitehorse. The urns, said to contain the ashes of Sam McGee, were being sold to visitors.(Citation needed)

McGee spent the rest of his life at his daughter's farm where he died in 1940 of a heart attack.

Recognition

A success upon its initial publication in 1907, the poem became a staple of traditional campfire storytelling in North America throughout the 20th century.

An edition of the poem, published in 1986 and illustrated by Ted Harrison, is read widely in Canadian elementary schools.

On 17 August 1976, Canada Post issued "Robert W. Service, Sam McGee" as an 8¢ stamp designed by David Charles Bierk.

The poem was anthologized in the Oxford Book of Narrative Verse, 1983.

In popular culture

Canadian folksinger/songwriter Stompin' Tom Connors created an uptempo song summarizing the tale in the early 1970s on his album Stompin' Tom Meets Big Joe Mufferaw.

The NFB (National Film Board of Canada) released an animated film in 1990 of the poem, read by Max Ferguson and using Ted Harrison's illustrations.

Johnny Cash's reading of the poem was National Public Radio's song of the day on May 9, 2006. Cash's "The Cremation of Sam McGee" was released along with a vast collection of personal archive recordings of Johnny Cash on the 2-disc album Personal File. Some believe Cash misreads the occasional word (such as "toil for gold" instead of "moil for gold") and accidentally transposes a few lines, but there are printed versions of the poem with "toil" used in place of "moil".

External links

Text

• Annotated text of the poem

Audio / video

• "The Cremation of Sam McGee" at YouTube
• The Cremation of Sam McGee" at LibriVox

About

• Sam McGee's Cabin
• Yukon Archives showing the Olive May

This poem is in the public domain