"Spell of the Yukon" by Robert Service (music and photos by Claire Ness)

I was on my way to play the Commissioner's Ball in Dawson City in 2018. Ryan McNally, who had played the ball in a prior year, told me that the crowd at the ball really love to dance. "Bring a lot of waltzes," he said. So I decided to take Robert Service's most famous poem, chop it up, out of order, using the most lyrical of stanzas, and make it into a waltz... Even though I only used 3 of his 9 verses, I like to think he would approve.
Words by Robert Service
Music by Claire Ness
Song produced, recorded, and engineered by Jordy Walker
Fiddle by Keitha Clark
Other instruments by Jordy Walker
LYRICS
There’s a land where the mountains are nameless,
And the rivers all run God knows where;
There are lives that are erring and aimless,
And deaths that just hang by a hair;
There are hardships that nobody reckons;
There are valleys unpeopled and still;
There’s a land-oh, it beckons and beckons,
And I want to go back-and I will.
Oh The summer-no sweeter was ever;
The sunshiny woods all a thrill;
The grayling aleap in the river,
The bighorn asleep on the hill.
The strong life that never knows harness;
The wilds where the caribou call;
The freshness, the freedom, the farness-
O God! how I’m stuck on it all.
Oh The winter! the brightness that blinds you,
The white land locked tight as a drum,
The cold fear that follows and finds you,
The silence that bludgeons you dumb.
The snows that are older than history,
The woods where the weird shadows slant;
The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery,
I’ve bade ’em good-by-but I can’t.
There’s a land where the mountains are nameless,
And the rivers all run God knows where;
There are lives that are erring and aimless,
And deaths that just hang by a hair;