The Cremation of Sam McGee

The Cremation of Sam McGee
by Robert W. 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 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;
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."


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.

- from Best Tales of the Yukon by Robert W. Service

Where's the substance?

There is an article in today's (August 31, 2009) New York Times, The Future of Reading A New Assignment: Pick Books Yourself. The more attention paid to literacy and the love of reading, the better. However, it is easy to see why people become frustrated with the quality of journalism today. When you ask, What is the point of the article, what is new that is being reported, where is the data to support the reportage, is the information in the article and it's argument consistent with either the author's point or their premise, etc.? there is little to answer those pertinent questions and much confusion.

As quickly becomes apparent in reading the article, despite the headline, the story is not about the Future of Reading. It is actually about the balance between free reading in schools versus assigned reading. Both approaches have been around forever under one name or another. That is not news.

As the article acknowledges in passing, these approaches actually serve two different, though not incompatible goals. Free Reading is associated with creating a habit and love of reading. Assigned Reading is associated with establishing a common cultural base (and the capacity for critical reading). Two different goals. In an ideal world, you would spend plenty of time on both. In the real world (where you are always constrained by the number of hours available with the children) you can set one goal (and therefore approach) to the exclusion of the other or you can allocate some time to each approach.

So the article is not reporting any new approach. They substantially gloss over the fact that each approach serves a different end. There are no numbers in the article to suggest that one approach is superseding the other in school systems, merely anecdotal reportage that some systems are moving one way, some the other and most haven't changed.

And just to be clear, I think it is marvelous that the teachers reported on are striving to find ways to be more effective. My issue is not with their efforts or the techniques they are using, but with the reportage.

It almost feels as if this article were a deliberate set-up to generate heated discussion in the culture wars with some ruing the banishment of "To Kill a Mockingbird" and the promulgation of shallow, indulgent, popular contemporary books while others take the opposite view, celebrating the freedom of reading and self-expression. I suspect that the reality is that both parties would agree that we want children to love reading and that they ought to have some modicum of a shared culture.

The real question, which the article neither poses nor attempts to answer, is How do we inculcate a love of reading in our children and provide them a common culture all the while constrained by time, budgets, widely divergent home environments, and competing school system goals (oh yeah, physical health through athletics, cultural pursuits, mathematical facility, social studies, standardized tests, etc.)

So the article is an interesting reminder that there is an unresolved issue of how we might achieve this and it does give a couple of anecdotal stories about schools/teachers trying each approach. And that's about it. Call me a curmudgeon, but surely they could have done better than that.

Visiting Charlemagne

From Italy and Her Invaders: Frankish empire, 774-814 by Thomas Hodgkin and published in 1899.

In the year 1000 the young and romantic Emperor Otho III, accompanied by two bishops and by his captain of the guard and count of the palace, Otho of Lomello, opened Charles's tomb. Of this fact there is no doubt, nor that the deed excited the disapproval of some of his subjects, who believed that the vengeance of God fell upon the Emperor for this desecration of his predecessor's sepulchre. But the question is what the explorers saw when they opened the vault. The chronicler of Novalese, a nearly contemporary writer, tells the following story on the alleged authority of Count Otho of Lomello himself: ' We went in unto Charles, and found him, not lying, as is the manner of other dead bodies, but sitting on a chair as if still alive. He was crowned with a golden crown, and he held a sceptre in his hands. These were covered with gloves, through which the growing nails had forced their way. Above him was an alcove; wonderfully built of marbles and mortar; into which we made a hole before we came to the Emperor. As soon as we entered we perceived a very strong smell. We at once fell on our knees and did him reverence, and the Emperor Otho clothed him in white garments and cut his nails, and made good all that was lacking around him. But none of his limbs had fallen away through decay: only there was a little piece gone from the tip of his nose, which the Emperor caused to be replaced with gold. Then having taken one tooth out of his mouth and rebuilt the alcove, so we departed.

It seems that some of the marvelously ghoulish legends and myths of the Middle Ages, so appealing to an early reader's imagination, have fallen out of circulation. A pity. Who could top a gold tipped nose to hold a child's interest.

Independent Reader

The Life And Times Of Charlemagne by Jim Whiting Potential

Young Adult

Bulfinch's Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch Suggested

White House Stories

From a Wall Street Journal article by Peggy Noonan regarding a speech by Ronald Reagan in the summer of 1985 at a fund raiser for the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. He tells of the White House as a repository of history and stories.

"I have been told that late at night when the clouds are still and the moon is high, you can just about hear the sound of certain memories brushing by. You can almost hear, if you listen close, the whir of a wheelchair rolling by and the sound of a voice calling out, 'And another thing, Eleanor.' Turn down a hall and you hear the brisk strut of a fellow saying, 'Bully! Absolutely ripping!' Walk softly now and you're drawn to the soft notes of a piano and a brilliant gathering in the East Room, where a crowd surrounds a bright young president who is full of hope and laughter.

"I don't know if this is true, but it's a story I've been told, and it's not a bad one because it reminds us that history is a living thing that never dies. . . . History is not only made by people, it is people. And so history is, as young John Kennedy demonstrated, as heroic as you want it to be, as heroic as you are."

From the Nothing New Under the Sun Department

Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law, has brought to light a fascinating document from 1799. It is essentially a reasoned political polemic against the Adams administration and its proclivity for centralizing power at the federal level. I find the document fascinating on two counts.

The first is that it reads so comprehendibly some two hundred years after it was written. This is a very accessible narrative with little of the stiltedness that one comes across in other contemporaneous documents. That is a testiment to Cooper's authorial powers.

The real fascination though, is that the opinions expressed are so contemporary. In fact, when I first came across the document, it was out of context and I assumed that it was simply a modern day polemic cast in an older style. Only when I went searching for some background on Thomas Cooper, (also by Volokh) did it become apparent that this was a real historical document by a real contemporaneous person expressing logical and reasoned arguments against political actions occurring close to the birth of our republic which he felt threatened our traditions of liberty and freedom.

It is very easy to take this document and drop it into our current political squabbles and see it as being as relevant today as it was 210 years ago. Regardless of the parties and the individuals, it brings home that part of what we are witnessing is yet one more tidal movement of the interaction between human nature (the desire for power) and idealism (a form of government of free people). There is little that is new under the sun.

What Should Colleges Teach

An interesting post, What Should Colleges Teach, by Stanley Fish in August 24, 2009 New York Times, reacting to this report from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

The report has an agenda to advance but the analysis they present supports that too many universities are offering too many courses that are not what they purport to be. Professor Fish leads with:

A few years ago, when I was grading papers for a graduate literature course, I became alarmed at the inability of my students to write a clean English sentence. They could manage for about six words and then, almost invariably, the syntax (and everything else) fell apart. I became even more alarmed when I remembered that these same students were instructors in the college's composition program. What, I wondered, could possibly be going on in their courses?

I decided to find out, and asked to see the lesson plans of the 104 sections. I read them and found that only four emphasized training in the craft of writing. Although the other 100 sections fulfilled the composition requirement, instruction in composition was not their focus. Instead, the students spent much of their time discussing novels, movies, TV shows and essays on a variety of hot-button issues - racism, sexism, immigration, globalization. These artifacts and topics are surely worthy of serious study, but they should have received it in courses that bore their name, if only as a matter of truth-in-advertising.

HMS Seraph

The HMS Seraph, upon which Rear Admiral Sir David Scott (from the Ferdinand the Submariner Bull post) served was a storied British naval vessel not only as an attack submarine but also for its various secret missions. Among these was the famous Operation Mincemeat by which the British successfully misdirected the Germans regarding their war aims. Ewen Montagu wrote a popular account of the mission in 1954, The Man Who Never Was, which is usually still available in libraries and is a good WWII action read for seventh grade readers and above, akin to Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo and God Is My Co-Pilot.

Ferdinand the Submariner Bull

The October, 2009 Naval History magazine has an article by British submariner Rear Admiral Sir David Scott, recounting his experiences patrolling the Mediterannean in World War II, a theater where British submarine mortality rates approached 50%. He mentions the importance of humor, no matter how desperate the circumstances and relates:

Such were the puerile comforts in the face of imminent annihiliation. We even displayed a sense of humor when we painted emblems on the subs. In one case, for example, we avoided the obvious sharks with huge teeth and avenging devils and instead emblazoned our boat with an image of The Story of Ferdinand, who preferred to stay home and sniff the flowers rather than face the combat of the bullring. In any case, we knew that, like Ferdinand, we were the muscular best of the breed.

One of America's Stories

A story in the August 23, 2009 New York Times - A Georgia County Shares a Tale of One Man's Life and Death by Drew Jubera.

Burying the Lede

The New York Times carried an article, A Library's Approach to Books that Offend by Alison Leigh Cowan on August 19, 2009.

While the article opens with the instance where Brooklyn Public Library has rather shamefully bowed to pressure from a patron to hide a Herge book, "Tintin au Congo", there is actually good news when you read through the whole article. The most embarrasing quote in the article "'It's not for the public,' a librarian in the children's room said this month when a patron asked to see it." It breaks your heart to see such craveness. On the other hand there is the marvelous quote from the American Library Association, "Toleration is meaningless without tolerance for what some may consider detestable." That is wonderfully heartening.

What is even more reassuring is how relatively few people ever actually follow-up their heated words or outrage with actual action. The fact that the New York Public Library, serving several millions of people, only receives six or so formal written objections a year to particular books is a wonderful statement to everyone's general broadmindedness. Alternatively one could conclude that the noisemakers are just that, makers of noise but not really serious about their nominal concerns.

At a national level, the ALA reports an average of about 700 written objections a year to particular titles. In the context of roughly 120,000 libraries serving some three hundred million Americans, that is a marvellously low number. Granted that there are probably many more complaints made verbally that are resolved without action simply by librarians explaining library policies. But still: only 700? That's great. On almost any metrics you might use (formal complaints per population, complaints per volume of books held, complaints per circs) the number is vanishingly small. That's good news that ought to be highlighted.