The Cremation of Sam McGee

Robert Service | 2008-02-27 | Robert Service

[Clive]

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 cursed cold, and it’s got right hold till I’m chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet ‘taint 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;
Then 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.”

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.

[don'tbedenied]

Yes I’m looking at the Collected Poems of Robert Service just now. My Mom gave it to me for Christmas in 1967. seems appropriate for this tough winter.

[ASOC]

Lets all sing together now

When it’s Springtime in Alaska
It’s 40 below.....

Pppfffttt
It got up to 32 above today.

[patton]

see the last paragraph of #40

Now THAT is alaska.

[LibFreeOrDie]

Jean Shepherd reads “The Cremation of Sam McGee”:

http://shep-archives.com/netjuke/search.php?do=search&col=tr.name&val=Cremation

(On the far left Options column, click the little musical note symbol to play.)

[andy58-in-nh]

Thanks - I found that site a couple of months ago and was amazed to discover a treasure trove of air checks of his programs and interviews. There are well over 1000 full-length WOR shows there, for Pete’s sake! Brought back a lot of memories.....

[ASOC]

True

Add the sudden flare of a tree ignigting in the dead blackness of a winter night from a slow burning tundra fire (you could XXXX yourself on that one)

Spitting in the air to watch the ice hit the ground

Have all your coms go south but see the most spectacular Northern Lights display in years

Watch *your* pallet load of C rats hit the ice cold dirt because the (60 foot) chute failed to deploy. And you get to dig for breakfast......

[patton]

And that latrine duty - where you are on the roster to burn off the frozen ring, from the cast iron commode on the clondike.

[patton]

Challenge time - one sentence, as many words as you can manage, NWTC.

Have at it.

[ASOC]

I sat shivering in the cold wind, wondering if the doctors really could attach the broken, frozen bits, but not bits of my manhood, thank you very much, those being very well protected, when the First Sergeant gave the incredible, no, unbelievable order for all of us to report to the mortar range to assist in cleaning up the many buffalo who had died that very morning in a freak training accident – the very morning I had frozen off my many bits trying to recover the MK 108 that had slid down the long icy path, known as Dead Mans Turn, near the infamous Mississippi range complex after being used to direct the many F-4 supported CAS missions, whose thundering blasts, from the multiple 500 and 1000 pound bombs, caused a herd of buffalo to stampede onto the distant mortar range, the very ones we were being ordered to collect as evidence for use in a possible courts-martial trail of the Range Control officer in charge, a well respected and careful man, well known and repected despite being an Army Captian and West Pointer.

170+ - I had to stop, I was laughing so hard. Forget the manatee, remeber the buffalo......

for the record, I HATE frozen C rats.....

[patton]

LOLOLOL - that is funny on soooo many levels.

Response later.

(BTW, c-rats aren’t _really_ frozen until an hour on the yukon stove won’t thaw them out.)

[ASOC]

Burnt on the bottom and ice on the top.

Yummy!

We used to keep a bucket of water on the top to add a bit of humidity and we would pre-thaw the worst of the cans with the hot water.

Or

Stick the box on the tailpipe of the MK 108 & let it cook. Beans and weenies will explode tho......