Euro-Canadians are unique among the peoples of the world. Our spirit was, and continues to be, forged by the incredible cold of our northern landscape. It’s a cold whose fierceness can only be understood by those who have experienced it, trudged through snow and felt the bite of the wind on their face. The Euro-Canadian soul came to both fear and exult in it. In the Far North of the country it kindled the latent European curiosity and love of the natural world; Ted Harrison’s paintings lit up the barren lands with the varied colours of his imaginative mind.
Robert Service (1874-1958) published The Cremation of Sam McGee, one of his most famous poems, in his 1907 Songs of a Sourdough (a “sourdough” being the colloquial name for a resident of the Yukon). This recording is read by Robert Service himself.
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