The Spell of the Yukon through the Ages

It is an intense sensation, and emotion that I have felt before, but I haven't felt anything quite this strong and of this variety for I don't know how long. There is something coming from deep inside me, the desire for something not present. It is love, yearning, and an ache for a vast land oh so far away. For people and places familiar. I have known it as has any who has ventured from one location to another; sometimes more than others. As discussed with other travelers, you leave parts of yourself in places where you connect with people in community. Many times I find this sensation to be un-focused on any one place, but for all places where you have left part of your story.

Not this time. Feel the call of the jagged snow capped mountains tumbling down to the emerald clad shores of a deep green icy lake, still as glass reflecting the splendor to the enormous land and vivid sky. The salt scented air of the fjords and bays, with glaciers meeting waters edge. This is the feeling of homesickness. Yes, I am homesick for Alaska, and I had it in a terrible way yesterday. All I had to do was close my eyes and scenes of dancing northern lights, or midnight sun camp fires with family and friends fill my mind's eye. It is unlike any place I have been and I am proud to call it home. 

Growing up my family often read together. We would read many classics of English and American literature. One of our favorite poets is Robert Service (1/16/1874 - 9/11/1958). Even at an early age my sister and I knew whole passages of verse from his works pertaining to Alaska. Just say, "There are strange things done in the midnight sun," and you would start us off on reciting the entire poem. All 17 verses. Here is one of our favorites which I would like to share.

The Spell of the Yukon
 By Robert Service

I wanted the gold, and I sought it;
I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.
Was it famine or scurvy - I fought it;
I hurled my youth into a grave.
I wanted the gold, and I got it-
Came out with a fortune last fall-
Yet somehow life's not what I thought it,
And somehow the gold isn't all.

No, There's the land. (Have you seen it?)
It's the cussedest land that I know,
From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it,
To the deep, deathlike valleys below.
Some say God was tired when He made it,
Some say it's a fine land to shun;
Maybe; but there's some as would trade it
For no land on earth - and I'm one.

You come to get rich (damned good reason);
You feel like an exile at first;
You hate it like hell for a season,
And then you are worse than the worst.
It grips you like some kinds of sinning,
It twists you from foe to a friend;
It seems it's been since the beginning,
It seems it will be to the end.

I've stood in some mighty-mouthed hollow
That's plumb-full of hush to the brim;
I've watched the big, husky sun wallow
In crimson and gold, and grow dim,
Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming,
And the stars tumbled out, neck and crop,
And I've thought that I surely was dreaming,
With the peace o' the world piled on top.

The summer-no sweeter was ever;
The sunshiny woods all a thrill;
The grayling aleap in the river,
The bighorn asleep on the hill.
The strong life that never knows harness;
The wilds where the caribou call;
The freshness, the freedom, the fairness
O God! How I'm stuck on it all.

The winter! The brightness that blinds you,
The white land locked tight as a drum,
The cold fear that follows and finds you,
The silence that bludgeons you dumb.
The snows that are older than history,
The woods where the weird shadows slant;
The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery,
I've bade 'em goodbye, but I can't.

There's a land where the mountains are nameless,
And the rivers all run God knows where;
There are lives that are erring and aimless,
And deaths that just hang by a hair;
There are hardships that nobody reckons;
There are valleys unpeopled and still,
There's a land - Oh, it beckons and beckons,
And I want to go back - and I will.

They're making my money diminish;
I'm sick of the taste of champagne.
Thank God when I'm skinned to a finish
I'll pike to the Yukon again.
I'll fight-and you bet it's no sham-fight;
It's hell! - But I've been there before;
And it's better than this by a damn sight,
So me for the Yukon once more.

There's gold, and it's haunting and haunting;
It's luring me on as of old;
Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wanting
So much as just finding the gold.
It's the great, big, broad land way up yonder,
It's the forests where silence has lease;
It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
It's the stillness that fills me with peace.