Robert William Service (January 16, 1874 – September 11, 1958) was a poet and writer, sometimes referred to as "the Bard of the Yukon". He is best-known for his writings on the Canadian North, including the poems "The Shooting of Dan McGrew", "The Law of the Yukon", and "The Cremation of Sam McGee". His writing was so expressive that his readers took him for a hard-bitten old Klondike prospector, not the later-arriving bank clerk he actually was.
In addition to his Yukon works, Service also wrote poetry set in locales as diverse as South Africa, Afghanistan, and New Zealand. His writing has a decidedly British Empire point of view.
