AllMovie

This program tells the background story of the making of the famous and darkly humorous poem of life in the Yukon, and the biography of its author, Robert Service. Service was born in England, but came to live in Canada as a young man. He worked for the Canadian Bank of Commerce, which sent him to the Yukon, where he observed the hard life of the men driven to endure the land's cold, harsh conditions in their search for gold. Sam McGee was actually a bank customer, and Service immortalized him in this narrative of a man from Tennessee who finally gets his wish to be warm. Narrated by William Conrad, and illustrated with paintings by Ted Harrison, the film captures the humor and pathos of the story of "strange things done in the midnight sun...when I cremated Sam McGee". The program also includes the retelling and explanation of the poems "Darius Green and His Flying Machine" and "The Deacon's Masterpiece."