Cremation of Sam McGee

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who toil 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 Laberge
I cremated Sam McGee.

So begins and ends of Robert Service's classic comic poem "The Creation of Sam McGee -- the tale of gold-mining in the Yukon Territory and one miner's "last request.""

Here's a bit of a deep-summer lark, two readings of the poem, one by country singer Johnny Cash and the other by children author Daniel Pinkwater with NPR's Scott Simon.

Service, a Scotsman, lived in the Yukon during the Klondike gold rush and actually based his poem on an incident of his rommate, a surgeon who came across a corpse.

The poem was originally published in 1907, was later transformed into a children's book with striking serigraph illustrations by Canadian artist, Ted Harrison.

Classroom thoughts

• Compare the two readings.
• Consider the impact of climate on people, their culture and art.
• Is the service poem "children's literature"? How do you explain the enduring popularity of such a poem, or children's literature generally? Feel free to draw on your own examples.