[Alaska Gold Rush] Service, Robert W. Ballads of a Cheechako

Service, Robert W. Ballads of a Cheechako. New York: Barse & Hopkins, (1909). [8800]

Green publisher's cloth with titles to front & spine in gilt, some edgewear and rubbing with the spine dull. 18.5 cm (7 1/2 x 5 inches), 1926 owner's signature in pencil on the ffep. 137 clean pp., tight, some page corners bumped. Good. Hardcover.

A "cheechako" in Alaskan slang meant a tenderfoot or newcomer.

Robert William Service (1874-1958), b. Preston, England; d. Lancieux, France. He was raised by his grandfather and three aunts in Glasgow and studied briefly at the University there. In 1894 he sailed for western Canada and the Yukon Wilderness, having been inspired by the writings of Rudyard Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson. He became known as the "Bard of the Yukon" for his novels and books of poetry about the Yukon Gold Rush.

He was a correspondent for the Toronto Star during the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 and was wounded twice in his service with the American Red Cross in France as a stretcher bearer and ambulance driver in 1914-15. He married after the war and remained in France for the rest of his life. His satires of both Hitler and the Soviet Union put him in danger several times. Some of his later novels were made into films, and during WWII he played himself in the movie The Spoilers. He continued to write, and his last collection was published posthumously.