by CONNIE TABBERT
Editor
WHITEWATER REGION (Beachburg) — A Whitewater Region thespian will be the lone man on stage during a two-hour performance at St. Andrew’s United Church in Beachburg next Wednesday evening.
A fundraiser for the Whitewater Region Public Library, this is the third, and final, in a series titled Encounters with Great Writers.
Conrad Boyce moved to Whitewater Region three years ago and is a board member for the library. Knowing the importance of fundraising for the upkeep of the three libraries in the township, he proposed the three-part series.
The first was a reading titled Gospel of Mark followed by Maud of Leaskdale, who wrote Anne of Green Gables, which Mr. Boyce wrote and directed.
“It was very entertaining and funny,” he said.
This is the third and is titled, A Special Presentation for Remembrance Day – Gold Rush to the Great War. There will be a selection of poems by Robert W. Service, including The Cremation of Sam McGee and many from his powerful war poetry. The Sam McGee poem is the story of a prospector who freezes to death near Lake Laberge, Yukon, Canada, as told by the man who cremated him.
In 1978, Mr. Boyce was exposed to Robert Service’s poetry, as he performed recitations as part of a show.
“That’s when I fell in love with him,” he recalled.
In 1979, while in the Yukon, he was hired to sub in for the man who was performing readings at Mr. Service’s cabin in Dawson Creek.
For more than 40 years, Mr. Boyce has been reciting Mr. Service’s poems in various settings. Each winter for many years, he would do a six-week tour through California, Arizona and Florida.
He noted that Mr. Service was a bank teller in Scotland and came to Canada just before the Klondike gold rush in 1896.
In 1906 he wrote the Sam McGee story. This most-famous poem has been recited around campfires and on fishing trips for years, he said.
In 1908, Mr. Service had his first book of poems published and a year later, his second was published.
When he was in his 40’s, Mr. Service became an ambulance driver during World War One, which is where he got the stories for his war time poems. The Toronto Star approached Mr. Service to be a war correspondence because they “liked the flow of his writing.”
In 1912, he went to war, met a Parisian girl, whom he later married.
“Part way through the war, almost every soldier had a copy of Robert Service’s book in their backpack,” Mr. Boyce said. “He retired from the bank on the proceeds of his books.”
Next Wednesday evening, Nov. 7, starting at 7 p.m. Mr. Boyce will recite 19 poems of Mr. Service’s, at St. Andrew’s United Church in Beachburg. The recitation will include The Cremation of Sam McGee, along with eight other poems that are gold rush/Klondike related and nine from the war poems. There will be a short intermission between the two different types of poems.
“I have a talent for versifying,” Mr. Boyce said. “I’ve recited poems at church socials and on stage.”
Throughout the recitations, Mr. Boyce will use different voices for the many characters.
“I will not play Robert Service, I will be reciting Robert Service,” he explained. “He so beautifully caught the flavour of life in the trenches in the first World War.”
When Mr. Boyce was deciding on the fundraiser, which was appropriate for him as an actor, he thought Robert Service’s poems were perfect for reciting, since this Nov. 11 is the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One.
Tickets are $20 each and are available at The Candlewick in Cobden and at the door.
