Robert William Service was born 16 January 1874 in Preston, England, but
also lived in Scotland before emigrating to Canada in 1894. Service went
to the Yukon Territory in 1904 as a bank clerk, and became famous for
his poems about this region, which are mostly in his first two books of
poetry. He wrote quite a bit of prose as well, and worked as a reporter
for some time, but those writings are not nearly as well known as his
poems. He travelled around the world quite a bit, and narrowly escaped
from France at the beginning of the Second World War, during which time
he lived in Hollywood, California. He died 11 September 1958 in France.
Incidentally, he played himself in a movie called "The Spoilers",
starring John Wayne and Marlene Dietrich.