What's New
Robert Service’s Cabin Gets a Facelift
Robert Service in front of his cabin.© Yukon Archives, Gillis family fonds, #4531
Treasured by those who love Robert Service’s poetry, the two-roomed cabin that the “Bard of the Yukon” called home from 1909 to 1912 is also valuable as a rare example of a typical Klondike miner’s log cabin (ca 1900). After surviving over a century of Yukon’s extreme climate, the cabin was showing its age.
To ensure authenticity in the cabin’s restoration, Parks Canada staff followed strict guidelines - and sifted through piles of historical documents. First steps were to improve drainage and ventilation, replace rotten logs, and tame overgrown vegetation. Debate was long and hard over the decision to replace the sod roof. While many visitors loved the greenery, there is photographic proof that in Service’s time, the roof was tin.
Inside, one of the more tedious jobs was stretching canvas over the log walls and installing wallpaper reproduced from original samples. Now, visitors can enter the cabin to appreciate the wallpaper and other Gold Rush artifacts “up close and personal”.
In time for visitor season 2012, a new semi-enclosed seating area will protect visitors from weather and street noise during the daily Robert Service program.