Service is best known for his poems of the Yukon, although many of his poems are set in bohemian Paris and the battlefields of World War I. Rumors of gold in the Klondike region brought thousands of prospectors and adventurers in 1898. But when Service arrived in the Yukon in 1904, the gold rush had largely passed and many disappointed gold seekers had already given up and returned home. Service became fascinated with those who remained and with the tales they told. Many of his Yukon ballads were inspired by these yarns. The poems reflect his appreciation for the magnificent grandeur of the Yukon landscape.

In 1913 Service settled in the Latin Quarter of Paris, observing the bohemian life of the streets. When World War I broke out, he recorded his observations in Rhymes of a Red Cross Man.

After the war, many American writers and artists began to settle in...