Sam McGee – not from Tennessee

The “Cremation of Sam McGee” by Robert Service, from the 1907 book “Songs of a Sourdough” (US: “The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses”). “Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows…”

This famous work is purely fictional, although it is loosely based on people, places and events Robert Service the poet (and then bank employee) encountered during his time in the north. One of the people he knew was Sam McGee, the the man who lent his name to the legend. He truly did exist, although that’s where his tie-in with the story ends.

Nothing relating to Sam’s life was otherwise immortalized in the poem. Not a one. Most noteworthy, Sam McGee was not from Tennessee, but rather hailed from eastern Canada. I guess “Sam McGee from Lindsay, Kawartha Lakes Municipality, a little northwest of Peterborough, Ontario” didn’t have the proper ring to it and was not so easy to rhyme. Still, Sam was an adventuresome soul, but not in the way described by Service.

Born in the 1860s, McGee did find his way north during the great Klondike Gold Rush at the turn of the twentieth century. Landing in Whitehorse Yukon, a chance meeting between himself and the banker/poet Service is where the connection was made. McGee, while up north, only dabbled in prospecting. Road building became his trade.

His full name was William Samuel McGee, but everyone seemed to know his as Sam. For the last year or so of his life, resided in the Beiseker area of Alberta, where he passed on in August 1940.

Of all of the poems that Service wrote, this one is probably his best known work. It made Service famous and McGee too, although the latter was often a victim of ribbing thanks to the connection. Still, it seems like he begrudgingly accepted his lot and in doing so, became a legend.

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 ’tain’t 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.

The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert Service is in the public domain.

From the Calgary Herald, September 11th, 1940…

“End of Sourdough Saga – Last Rites Held For Sam McGee, Yukoner Flies To Pal’s Funeral.”

“This afternoon they buried one of the north country’s most colourful figures, 72-year-old Sam McGee, who was “cremated” thirty-odd years ago by Robert W Service.

The story of how Sam McGee came to be the “hero” of Service’s famous poem was told today by McGee’s partner, a man who had flown down from Whitehorse, Yukon, to attend the funeral. He was Dick Corless, famous “flying prospector” of the north, who has been successfully operating an extensive prospecting and mining business in the Yukon since 1912.

Several times, since he left the Yukon 30 years ago, Sam McGee went back to his former haunts and accompanied Mr Corless on prospecting trips. He was going to go back this summer. Their equipment is still waiting for them in a little cabin at Burwash Creek, 200 miles west of Whitehorse.”

From the local history book “Beiseker’s Golden Heritage”, a passage by Margaret Toews…

“Sam McGee wasn’t from Tennessee, nor did the Yukon prospector of that name freeze to death and get cremated on the marge of Lake Lebarge in 1898. He died in his bed at the age of 74, eight miles east and three miles south of Beiseker on his daughter’s farm, worn out from a life of work and adventure. A bigger hero and a much better story than that of the frozen stiff in Robert Services’ poem.”

“And no one has ever gotten the story right”, says Mrs Emil Gramms daughter of the real Sam McGee.

Sam passed on fifteen years before his wife Ruth and on her death, she was buried next to him. A new headstone was added at this time so they could add her name, but the older, smaller one was retained as well.

Know more (new tab): The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert Service.

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Date of adventure: August, 2025.
Location: Level Land Cemetery, Beiseker Alberta.
Article references and thanks: UofCalgary photo archives, Calgary Herald archives @ Google Books and the book Beiseker’s Golden Heritage

The grave of the real Sam McGee (William Samuel McGee) and his wife.

The original headstone was retained even after they put in a new one.