ROBERT SERVICE’S TYPEWRITER

Robert Service (1874–1958), the “Bard of the Yukon,” was one of the most adored and commercially successful poets of the twentieth century. He was born in Preston, England, and arrived in Canada in 1896 at the age of twenty-two. He travelled extensively, principally along the west coasts of Canada and the United States. In 1903, he started working for the Canadian Bank of Commerce in British Columbia. In 1905, he was sent to Whitehorse in Yukon Territory. During his years in the Yukon he produced The Spell of the Yukon, Ballads of a Cheechako, The Cremation of Sam McGee, and other literary works. After moving to Dawson City, Service wrote some of his most memorable works on this 1901 Bennett typewriter in a tiny cabin on Eighth Avenue, where he lived from 1908 to 1912. His home, a part of Dawson Historical Complex National Historic Site, can be visited as he left it in 1912, and his typewriter is part of the cabin’s collection of historic objects.