Cabin Fever
This Months selection, Good-bye Little Cabin, is
a sentimental look at Service's famous Dawson City cabin. Written by Robert
this fond farewell to his abode was included in Rhymes of a Rolling Stone,
published in 1912. This would be his last book written in the Yukon. In
this little cabin Service found the solitude he needed to pen his first
novel, The Trail Of 98. It's walls were covered with sheets of paper
where Service scrawled pieces of prose and verse for his works, imagine
the worth of those sheets of writings now! When Services penned this verse
he was not only saying good by to his home but to the Yukon as well. He
was embarking on new adventures and would never return to the Yukon where
he secured his fame and fortune. Robert in his autobiography, ploughman
of the moon gives us insight into his feelings at this time:
"I finished my book in the late spring but still I lingered. Dawson
had meant much to me and I had been happy there. I was loath to go, for
I felt I would be leaving behind me part of myself. So I remained until
the last boat. As I wrote some verses bidding good-bye to my cabin I knew
they meant farewell to so much that was familiar and dear.
My plan was to go to the south Seas. I imagined I had the gift of golden
indolence and suspected that as an adventurer I was a bit of baloney. I
dreamed of palms, starry-eyed sirens, strumming ukuleles on coral strands.
I could realize all that. I was young, free and I had no more need to work.
I had done my share of roving. Let me rest in colourful security.
So I thought, but at the same moment an editor was saying: "Here's
a guy that loves excitement and action. He is dedicated to adventure and
doesn't mind taking any old chance. Now he's at a loose end. Let's send
this bold boy to the blood bath of the Balkans. Give him a chance to show
his guts." Thus I got a letter proposing to make a war correspondent
out of me, and with curses in my heart I cabled acceptance. Then with my
book of verse in my valise, superb as to health but uncouth through long
living near to nature, I departed for sophisticated Europe.
As the steamer passed the mouth of the Klondike I was as blue as burning
brimstone. There was the grey face of the Slide, the green summit of the
Dome, the brown town clinging to the river bank. It was not beautiful but
it was very dear to me. I knew every nook and corner, so that it seemed
to be a Self I was leaving behind. Poor old Town, so wistful, so weary.
"Your leaving me too," it seemed to say. "like so many you
are abandoning me. I have sheltered you, nourished you, brought you cheer,
and now you disregard me and turn to others more fair.." And I answered:
"I swear I will come back. I will live with you again and renew the
joy and comfort I have known. You have been more to me than any other of
my resting places. I am grateful and will never forget. Yes, I will come
back.
But I never did. Only yesterday an air-line offered to fly me up there
in two days, and I refused. It would have saddened me to see dust and rust
where once hummed a rousing town; hundreds where were thousands; tumbledown
cabins, mouldering warehouses . . .
And as I looked my last, my eyes rested on my cabin high on the hill.
The door seemed to open and I saw a solitary figure waving his pip in farewell
- the ghost of my dead youth. No, I do not want to meet that reproachful
wraith again. He might say: "You promised to do so much; you have done
so little."
And I had a further thought that saddened me even more. I felt I was
not only quitting Dawson but the North itself. Nine years of my life I had
given it and it was in my blood. It had inspired and sustained me, brought
me fortune and a meed of fame. I thought I knew it better than most men
and could express its secret spirit. Maybe I should have remained there
and devoted my life to singing and writing of it. . . . "I will come
back," I said again. "I will be true to the North." But over
thirty years have passed and I have not returned. now i know I never will."
RWS Ploughman of The Moon, copyright 1945
To See A 1920 Description of Service's Cabin Click Here
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