Left: Photo of prostitues in Dawson City.
"Oh those Dawson days, and the sin and the blaze, and the town all open wide!
(If God made me in his likeness, sure He let the devil inside.)
we all were mad, both the good and the bad, and as for the women well-
No spot on the map in so short a space has hustled more souls to hell."
The Parson's Son
This Service Selection was included in his first volume of verse, The Spell Of The Yukon. Who was this Parson's Son Service immortalized in verse? Was he based on someone Robert met in the Yukon or was he a fictitious person . . . What ever the case we can get an insight of the fever that griped the Klondikers in those early days of the rush through Service's pen.
Editors Note- This poem has a derogatory slang for a native American woman. In 1907 when this verse was created it was a common slang among white people. Sadly, nearly 90 years later the term "squaw" has remained in many peoples vocabulary, unaware of the hurtful nature of the slang towards Native Americans.
The Parson's Son
by Robert W Service
his is the song of the parson's son, as he squats in his shack alone,
On the wild, weird nights, when the Northern Lights shoot up from the Frozen Zone
And it's sixty below, and couched in the snow the hungry huskies moan:
"I'm one of the arctic brotherhood, I'm an old time pioneer.
I came with the first-O God! how I've cursed this Yukon -but still I'm here.
I've sweated athirst in it's summer heat, I've frozen and starved in it's cold;
I've followed my dreams by it's thousand streams, I've toiled and moiled for it's gold.
"Look at my eyes-been snow blind twice; look where my Foot's half gone;
And that gruesome scar on my left cheek, where the frost-fiend bit to the bone.
Each a brand of this devil's land, where I've played and I've lost the game,
A broken wreck with a craze for 'hooch', and never a cent to my name.
"This mining is only a gamble; the worst is as good as the best;
I was in with the bunch and I might have come out right on top with the rest;
With Cormack, Ladue and Mcdonald-O God! but it's hell to think
Of the thousands and thousands I've squandered on cards and women and drink.
"In the early days we were just a few, and we hunted and fished around,
Nor dreamt by our lonely campfires of the wealth that lay under the ground.
We traded in skins and whiskey, and I've often slept under the shade
Of that lone birch tree on Bonanza, where the first big find was made.
"We were just like a great big family, and every man had his squaw,
And we lived such a wild, free. fearless life beyond the pale of the law;
Till sudden there came a whisper, and it maddened us every man,
And I got in on Bonanza before the big rush began.
"Oh those Dawson days, and the sin and the blaze, and the town all open wide!
(If God made me in his likeness, sure He let the devil inside.)
But we all were mad, both the good and the bad, and as for the women well-
No spot on the map in so short a space has hustled more souls to hell.
"Money was just like dirt there, easy to get and to spend.
I was all caked in on a dance-hall jade, but she shook me in the end.
It put me queer, and for near a year I never drew sober breath,
Till I found myself in the bughouse ward with a claim staked out on death.
"Twenty years in Yukon, struggling along its creeks;
Roaming its giant valleys, scaling its god like peaks;
Bathed in its fiery sunsets, fighting its fiendish cold-
Twenty years in the Yukon . . . Twenty years-and I'm old.
"Old and weak, but no matter, there's in hootch in this bottle still.
I'll hitch up the dogs to-morrow, and mush down the trail to Bill.
It's so long dark, and I'm lonesome- I'll just lay down on the bed;
To-morrow I'll go. . . To-morrow. . . I guess I'll play on the red.
". . .Come Kit, your pony is saddled. I'm waiting, dear, in the court . . .
. . . Minnie, you devil, I'll kill you if you skip with that flossy sport . . .
. . .How much does it go to the pan, Bill? . . . Play up, School, and play the game . . .
. . .Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name . . ."
This was the song of the parson's son, as he lay in his bunk alone,
Ere the fire went out and the cold crept in, and his blue lips ceased to moan,
And the hunger-maddened malamutes had torn him flesh from bone.
*From The Spell of the Yukon 1907
