The Alaska daily empire., 1915-10-11
TOURISTS DAMAGE BOBBY sERYiCE
 DAWSON CABIN


 i.BOBBY SERVICE
 DAWSON CABIN !
 -
 SEATTLE. Oct 5-Whlle Robert w. \ Service has beon on the battle front in France. playing handball with death by throwing bombs from lacrosse \ racquet at the Germans trenches, lot of tourists have been visiting DaW- son and tearing his cabin to pieces and cutting on up lhe logs for souyen- frs. says the Seattle Times. The ois moose head which hung over tho door of tho humble shack near the summit ] of the Dawson Hill, has been cut to ! pieces. and unless the souvenir hunt 1 CTS are stopped tho cabin will soon be no more
 All of this ig very exasperating to many Northonors. who havo high regard for aBoh" Service, not because he has won famo In the literary world but because of his manly attributes. Northerner5 also hove sentimental regard for Services cabin, and they are ever hoping for the day when he win come back to inhabit it.
 Far be il from these people of tho North to be inhospitable. They are the embodiment of tho spirit of hos pilaIity which Service immortaiized in many Of bis verses. Strangers may come and help themselves to the game of the country. to their furs, even to the gold dust from their minos, but taking Bob. Services cabin, piece by piece. Is stretching the bounds of hos pilaiity to the breaking point, and they have written to The Times in protest against it
 cabln-ln Loved
 The Northern people love this en- bin as they love Bob" Service. Ser vice is a quiet diffident man-yet one who always did his share and more of the work on the trail He never was too tired to do the thousand chores around a camp in winter. When he made the long mush from Edmunton to the mouth of the Mackenzie river and thence across the dread Rat Port age to Fort Yukon, a Journey that occupied @ year and half in the vii. derness. Service bore more than his share of the hardship and agony of the journey.
 When fame and recognition had come to this Northern bard and he was called to the outside, he didn't want to leave the North and the peo- pie he had come Co know and who had come to know him. In the cabin on the hill that he occupied they found pinned to the wall the verses of which the following stanzas are a part:
 "Oh, dear little cabin, I've loved you
 SO long.
 And now J must bid you goodbye; I've filled you with laughter, I've
 cheered you with song.
 And sometimes I've wished ! could
 cry.
 Your walls they have witnessed a
 weariful fight,
  And rung lo a won waterloo. But oh. in my triumph I'm weary to-
 night
 Goodbye. little cabin to you. ! hear the world call and the clang
 of the fight;
 hear the hoarse cry of my Kind Yet well do ] know as quit you to-
 night,
 It's Youth that I'm leaving behind. And often lT think of you, empty
 and black
 Moose anhers nailed over your
 door;
 oh. if ! should perish my soul will
 come back
 To dwell in you. cabin, once more"
 Verses Have Appeal
 Some critics say the lines are not true poetry. but that makes no diff ference to the Northerners. The vers- es have an appeal to them. for they express the feelings which Northern CTS can understand.
 Inside or the cabin are a number of inscriptions and notices written by Service when he was struggling for the recognition which later came to him. The raspberry busnes and flowers which Service planted are stnl in the yard.
 The cabin belongs to Mrs, Esther Clark whose husband nurrhoeed if because of the magnificent north and south view of the Yukon which it fur. nished. Mrs Clark rented tho cabin to Service and when the Northern 1 poet left the Yukon he turned it over io Major Noble. Mrs Clark's will pro vides that the cabin must not be sold, but must be kept as Service left it. but # the vandalism of the tourists is kept mp for another summer, there l will be nothing left of the sourdough l habitation about which Northern peo- |